The UK Government has published the long-awaited NHS 10-year plan, which sets out the government’s priorities and policies for the health service in England.

Entitled ‘Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England’, the policy paper is centred around three big shifts: from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.

Below, AT Today has highlighted some of the key policies that assistive technology professionals should be aware of.

Neighbourhood Health Service

As part of the government’s goal to shift care from hospital to community, it is building what it calls a Neighbourhood Health Service. This is designed to deliver continuous, accessible, and integrated care, instead of the current “fragmented” system.

At its core, the Neighbourhood Health Service will take a preventative approach and is built around the principle that care should happen as locally as it can, digitally by default, in a patient’s home if possible, in a neighbourhood health centre when needed, and in a hospital if necessary.

To fund this new service, the government states: “Over the course of this plan, the share of expenditure on hospital care will fall, with proportionally greater investment in out-of-hospital care. This is not just a long-term ambition. We will also deliver this shift in investment over the next 3 to 4 years as local areas build and expand their neighbourhood health services.”

Importantly, the government says that to support the service, it will at least double the number of people offered a personal health budget (PHB) by 2028 to 2029, offer one million people a PHB by 2030, and ensure it is a universal offer for all who would benefit by 2035.

If the government meets this PHB commitment, it would mean that more people will be able to access essential assistive technologies, such as wheelchairs, through a PHB.

The government adds that AI and cutting-edge technology will be deployed by hospitals to free up space and improve patient care. The plan highlights that all hospitals will be fully AI-enabled within the next decade.

A digitally accessible health system

One of the government’s key priorities is to make the NHS digitally accessible. By harnessing the power of technology, the government wants to ensure people in generally good health can rapidly access NHS care, that hospitals are freed up for those with the most complex needs, and that the NHS is financially sustainable into the future.

Some of the key policies to support this digitally enabled health system include giving patients control over care data via a single patient care record; transforming the NHS App so that patients can get advice for non-urgent care, book directly into tests, and manage their long-term conditions and medicines; and using continuous monitoring to help make proactive management of patients the new normal, allowing clinicians to reach out at the first signs of deterioration to prevent an emergency admission to hospital.

In addition, healthcare staff will be able to use AI scribes to reduce administrative burden and free up their time to focus on patient care.

Preventative care

As part of the government’s plan to shift healthcare from sickness to prevention, it wants to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions, while increasing it for everyone.

The vast majority of this preventative care work revolves around ending the obesity epidemic, halting the advertising and sponsorship of nicotine products and vapes, harnessing breakthroughs in weight loss medication, and tackling harmful alcohol consumption.

A new operating model

To deliver on its three big shifts, the government is clear it wants to deliver a new operating model for the NHS that sees power pushed away from government and to places, providers, and patients.

To achieve this, the government is combining NHS England (NHSE) with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), reducing central headcount by 50 percent. This comes as part of the major announcement that NHS England will be formally abolished over the next couple of years.

Integrated care boards (ICBs) will become the strategic commissioners of local healthcare services. The government says it will build ICB capability and close commissioning support units.

The government also wants to: “Reinvent the NHS foundation trust (FT) model for a modern age. By 2035, our ambition is that every NHS provider should be an FT with freedoms including the ability to retain surpluses and reinvest them, and borrowing for capital investment. FTs will use these freedoms and flexibilities to improve population health, not just increase activity.”

The government aims to make use of private sector capacity to treat NHS patients where it is available and will enter discussions with private providers to expand NHS provision in the most disadvantaged areas.

In addition, the new operating model will trial new patient power payments, which are a new funding flow in which patients are contacted after care and given a say on whether the full payment for the costs of their care should be released to the provider.

Better data transparency

The government wants to improve data transparency across the NHS.

Some of the key policies surrounding this include publishing easy-to-understand league tables this summer that rank providers against key quality indicators; allowing patients to search and choose providers based on quality data on the NHS App; and giving all providers new flexibilities to make additional financial payments to clinical teams that have consistently high clinical outcomes and excellent patient feedback or are significantly improving care.

Developing the NHS workforce

There are also ambitions to develop the NHS workforce so that staff are better treated, more motivated, and receive better training.

Policies revolving around this area include ensuring all NHS staff members have their own personalised career coaching and development plan, updating and reforming employment contracts, and changing contracts to incentivise and reward high-quality and productive care.

Other policies include creating 1,000 new speciality training posts over the next three years and reducing international recruitment to less than 10 percent by 2035.

Innovative tech

The 10-year plan also details the government’s ambitions for the NHS to use innovative technologies to reform the health service, personalise care, and improve outcomes.

AI, again, is highlighted as a big part of the NHS’ reform. The government wants AI to be seamlessly integrated into clinical pathways.

Wearables will also be deployed as standard in preventative, chronic, and post-acute NHS treatment by 2035. All NHS patients will have access to these technologies, which will be part of routine care. The government will provide devices for free in areas where health need and deprivation are highest.

NICE’s technology appraisal process will be expanded to cover devices, diagnostics, and digital products. NICE will also be given a new role to identify which outdated technologies can be removed from the NHS to free up resources for investment in more effective ones.

The government also says it will streamline the procurement of technology.

Financial sustainability

The plan frequently mentions financial sustainability, and the government wants to get better outcomes for the money it spends.

According to the plan, the government will: “Restore financial discipline by ending the practice of providing additional funding to cover deficits. Over time, our aim is for the NHS to move into surplus with the majority of providers achieving that by 2030.”

All organisations will be asked to prepare realistic five-year financial plans to demonstrate how financial sustainability will be secured over the medium term.

NHS funding is set to be distributed more equally locally so it is better aligned with health need. In the meantime, the government will target extra funding to areas with disproportionate economic and health challenges.

In the longer term, the government hopes to move to a new NHS financial model where money will increasingly follow patients through their lifetime. Providers will be rewarded based on how well they improve outcomes for each individual, as well as how well they involve people in the design of their care.