Perspectives on the 10 Year Health Plan for England

Summary

On 3 July 2025, the UK Government published its 10 Year Health Plan for England. In the following months there has been much commentary on the practical implications of this and how it will impact patient safety, and healthcare more broadly. 

This article brings together reflections from organisations and individuals on the Plan’s vision for the future of the NHS.

Content

The 10 Year Health Plan for England identifies four major challenges shaping the future of healthcare in England:

• An ageing population living with multiple health conditions.
• Changes in illness, with more than a quarter of the population having a long-term health condition.
• Higher public expectations of how the NHS should provide services.
• Increases in cost, with health spending in England meeting the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average but achieving worse outcomes.

To take on these challenges, and act on the opportunities available, the 10 Year Health Plan reimagines the NHS through three radical shifts:

1.    Hospital to community- envisioned by the initiation of “a historic expansion of provision in people’s neighbourhoods. By bringing more integrated services into local communities, patients will have more power to tailor care to their individual needs and more convenient access.”

2.    Analogue to digital - transforming the NHS “from being a bricks and mortar service to a digitally led one, where patients can access care online and offline 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. By embracing the digital revolution, we will give patients the ability to control their appointments, choose their providers and access the help they need to manage their health and their care.”

3.    Sickness to prevention - with a goal to “halve the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions, while increasing it for everyone, and to raise the healthiest generation of children ever. This will boost our health, but also ensure the future sustainability of the NHS.”

Commentaries on the Plan and its implications for the future of health and care

Below are several different perspectives on the 10 Year Health Plan for England that we have added to the hub:

Patient Safety Learning

In our response to the Plan we highlighted that although it disappointingly does not recognise patient safety as one of its core themes, it does set out a welcome ambition to tackle some of the key underlying causes of avoidable harm. We sought to elaborate on this, setting out why patient safety needs to be at the core of the delivery of this new Plan. Much of the focus of our response concerns two of its three radical shifts: “Hospital to community” and “Analogue to digital”. Our response notes:

• In seeking to create a Neighbourhood Health Service, service redesign and plans should ensure that patient and staff safety is core to how care is delivered, unnecessary hospital admission is prevented and early discharge is supported.
• If the NHS is to become a fully digitally enabled service, patient safety will need to be at the heart of the introduction, implementation and operationalisation of new technologies and innovations, particularly AI-enabled care.
• A strong emphasis is placed on patient choice in the Plan, but relatively little is said about the role of patient and public involvement in shaping healthcare services—beyond engagement through new digital portals. Coupled with the proposed centralisation of patient experience functions within the Department of Health and Social Care there are valid concerns this could weaken the strength and independence of the patient voice.
• The absence of considering and responding to problems with NHS culture is a significant oversight in the 10 Year Health Plan. If the healthcare system is to truly be transformed over the next decade, then we cannot simply proceed by ignoring these issues or assuming they will resolve themselves.
• The Plan does not address the absence of systematic approaches to sharing learning about avoidable harm, the inadequacy of joined up approaches and user-centred design in solution development.

Read more here.

From analogue to digital: Tackling inequality and digital exclusion in the future NHS

In this blog, Katie Heard from the Good Things Foundation considers the digital implications of the 10 Year Health Plan. She reflects on the benefits and risks for those who are digitally excluded, what more can be done and how existing resources can help support further progress.

Read more here.

Compassionate leadership and the 10 Year Health Plan: address moral injury

In this blog Naja Felter and Alistair Thomson, noting the recognition of moral injury in the 10 Year Health Plan, make the case for compassionate leadership. They highlight there is ample evidence for the impact of this style of leadership in health and social care, including higher quality care, greater patient satisfaction, lower levels of workforce stress and burnout, and improved financial organisational performance.

Read more here.

Dazed and confused? Policy ideas behind the 10-Year Health Plan

In this article, Phoebe Dunn, Nicholas Mays and Hugh Alderwick ask whether the 10-Year Health Plan is a coherent blueprint for ‘reimagining’ the NHS, or a collection of ideas pulling in different directions? They identify five policy ideas that seem to guide key proposals in the Plan, draw on evidence about their potential impact, and stand back to see what it all adds up to for the NHS.

Read more here.

Patient Power: energising the 10-Year Health Plan through patient partnership

This is a video of a Patients Association online event that considered what needs to be done to ensure patient partnership is in the foundations of the 10 Year Health Plan. The session explored what meaningful patient agency looks like in practice, drawing on real-life insights from the Patients Association helpline and focus groups.

Watch the recording.

How will waiting times in community health services affect the shift towards neighbourhood health?

Community services are under growing strain, with more than 1.1 million people waiting for care, and the steepest rise among children and young people. In this Quality Watch article, Jessica Morris notes that focus to date has largely been on efforts to improve waits for hospital care, but as neighbourhood health services are rolled out, addressing pressures on community services will be essential if the ‘hospital to community’ shift is to become a reality.

Read more here.

Podcast: Alan Milburn on the 10-year health plan

In this podcast, The Health Foundation speaks to Alan Milburn about the future of the NHS and his thoughts on the government’s 10-Year Health Plan. Alan was Secretary of State for Health from 1999 to 2003, during the Blair governments, with his tenure seeing the development of the NHS Plan (2000) and record levels of investment. As Lead Non-Executive Director at the Department of Health and Social Care, Alan also had a hand in writing and developing the new plan. 

Read more here.

What does the NHS 10 Year Plan mean for dementia?

In this article, Alzheimer’s Research UK reflects on what the Plan means for people affected by dementia. It considers how it will potentially impact dementia diagnosis, new treatments, improving brain health and prevention.

Read more here.

Share your views with us

What is your opinion on the 10 Year Health Plan?

In the coming months we would like to feature more perspectives on how ideas and proposals flowing from this Plan are impacting how the NHS approaches patient safety. We would welcome your views and experiences of this. You can comment below (sign up to the hub first for free) or email the team directly at [email protected] to share your views.