*This letter was cascaded to the named recipients with accompanying information*
Classification: Official
Publication reference: PRN01961
To:
ICB Chief Executives
Local Authority Chief Executives
Cc.
NHSE Regional Directors Regional Medical Directors
Regional Directors of Primary Care and Public Health NHSE Regional Neighbourhood Health Leads
ICB Heads of Primary Care
Dear Colleague
Your invitation to be involved in the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme
We are delighted to share an open invitation for you to participate in the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme (NNHIP). We are inviting applications from one of more of the Places in your geography to join the first wave of the programme, with your support.
As explained in the 10 Year Health Plan, Neighbourhood Health is central to the Government’s ambition to shift care from hospitals to community, analogue to digital and delivering sustainable health and care services, moving from sickness to prevention. There are many people who experience complex problems in our communities. For example, children from challenged households, people with enduring mental illness, those not working due to disabilities, people with multiple long-term conditions and those experiencing poorer health outcomes compounded by the wider social determinants of health. No single agency working alone can adequately deal with the multiple and often complex issues impacting on the health and wellbeing of the people and communities we serve. Our current ways of working mean resources are not deployed as effectively as possible, creating pressure across the whole health and care system. This places avoidable demand on local authorities, social care, primary care and community care, and A&E and generates unnecessarily high rates of unscheduled admissions and delayed discharges – and most importantly poorer experience of care and outcomes for individuals and communities. A response to these and similar problems requires the coordinated mobilisation of the assets in a community including communities themselves. We need a radical shift in culture, allocation of resources and ways of working. This is at the heart of Neighbourhood Health and what we will begin to construct together. It is mission critical.
We know that many Places are already making progress but often are impeded by problems like misaligned incentives and performance management processes that are not aligned with system priorities. The NNHIP seeks to build on success to date and the new approaches set out in the 10 Year Health Plan – taking a test, learn and grow approach – to transform the health and care ofneighbourhoods. The aim of this new national programme is to accelerate the work you are doing, or planning to do, by learning together, sharing solutions, tackling challenges and delivering improvement, adapting those solutions to your own circumstances. More than that, it will be working at scale both within your Place and alongside Places across the country simultaneously, accelerating the learning.
Our approach
We are conscious of the pressures many people are under, and it is our intent to develop Neighbourhood Health in a facilitative way, incrementally but swiftly.
We will work with Places and their ICBs – who will need the willingness to explore new approaches to commissioning Neighbourhood Health Services and supporting the development of neighbourhood providers and multi-neighbourhood providers. The initial focus for the first Places will be creating Neighbourhood Health systems and processes for adults with multiple long-term conditions and rising risk before progressing to other areas. In addition, we will also work with Places on developing the new ways of working and the system enablers that underpin this. This will build on and not replace work that has already been progressing in many places and therefore, whilst firm on intent and measuring progress, there will be full flexibility to deliver in ways that are shaped locally and make sense to you.
The NNHIP will work with and complement other relevant test and learn programmes.
The NNHIP will be overseen by a joint Task Force between DHSC and NHSE. The small steering group of the task force will contain people from the front line from local authorities, voluntary sector and health organisations who have already delivered some of the changes we want to see. The Chair of the Task Force will be Sir John Oldham, a GP by background who is experienced in introducing quality improvement methods into the NHS and designing and delivering large-scale change programmes.
How to get involved
We encourage all those interested to apply. Applications need to be a collaborative and collective process amongst the different provider organisations in a particular geography. We welcome one or more Place applications from systems.
We are very much looking forward to receiving your applications and welcoming successful Places on to the first wave of the NNHIP.
I know you would agree that this is great opportunity for you and your Places, and we believe that individually and collectively, we can make the change we need. We hope you will join us in acting now for the future.
Applications need to be submitted by the 8 August to the following email address: england.neighbourhoodhealthserviceteam@nhs.net. We are holding a webinar at 15:30-16:30 on Tuesday 15 July to support applications. Please sign up here if you are interested in attending. Any queries or questions not covered in the FAQs can also be sent to england.neighbourhoodhealthserviceteam@nhs.net.
With kind regards,
Dr Claire Fuller, Co-National Medical Director (Primary Care), NHS England
Tom Riordan, Second Permanent Secretary, Department of Health and Social Care