Chancellor to double down on drive to cut NHS waiting times and rollout of new Neighbourhood Health Centres
250 Neighbourhood Health Centres to bring patient care closer to home and bring end to postcode lottery of healthcare access.
- £300 million of funding for NHS technology to support work of staff and boost their productivity.
- At the Autumn Budget the Chancellor will take the fair choices to cut NHS waiting times, cut national debt and cut the cost of living – continuing record investment into the NHS.
The Chancellor will double down on the government’s commitment of continuing to slash NHS waiting times in this week’s Budget - today confirming the investment for hundreds of new Neighbourhood Health Centres that will deliver healthcare direct to people’s doorsteps across the country.
At the Budget on Wednesday the Chancellor will set out how the government will take the fair choices to deliver on the country’s priorities to cut NHS waiting times, cut debt and cut the cost of living.
250 new health ‘one stop shops’ will bring the right local combination from GPs, nurses, dentists and pharmacists together under one roof to best meet the needs of the community, starting in the most deprived areas.
The centres will be part of a new Neighbourhood Health Service that will provide end-to-end care and tailored support - improving access to GPs, helping to prevent complications and avoid the frustration of being passed around the system.
As the Neighbourhood Health Service moves more outpatient care out of hospitals, these centres will provide space for clinics in communities across the country – bringing an end to the postcode lottery of access to healthcare.
Patients will get treatment minutes from home instead of travelling miles to often hard to reach hospitals, so the NHS is organised around patients’ needs - rather than patients organising their lives around the NHS.
Neighbourhood health services will initially focus on improving access to general practice and supporting people with complex needs and long-term conditions - like diabetes and heart failure - in the areas of the highest deprivation. As the programme grows, it will expand to support other patients and priority cohorts.
With construction delivered by a dynamic new approach between the public and private sector, involving both repurposing current estate and new buildings, Neighbourhood Health Centres are a key part of the government’s plan to build an NHS fit for the future, one that fits around people’s lives and is an integral part of their community.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said:
At the Budget I’ll set out how we’ll deliver on the country’s priorities to cut NHS waiting times, cut debt and cut the cost of living.
We’re driving down waiting lists by bringing healthcare to patients’ doorsteps and turbocharging NHS productivity with cutting-edge technology.
Our record investment, combined with ruthless efficiency and reform, will deliver the better care and better outcomes our NHS patients deserve.
At the Budget, Rachel Reeves is also set to turbocharge the drive to get waiting lists down by funnelling millions of pounds into upgrading technology in the health system – improving productivity so nurses and doctors can focus on caring for patients and speeding up how quickly patients are treated.
£300 million of new capital investment will go into NHS tech, with new digital tools to be rolled out to NHS staff to support their work and improve productivity - by automating administrative tasks and providing swifter access to patient information, as well as ensuring better staff communication and better coordinated care. This will give nurses, physios, doctors, and other staff more time to care and less time on admin.
Productivity for hospital care such as A&E and surgery is up 2.4% this year, meaning patients are being seen and treated more quickly across the health service. Achieving 2% productivity growth will unlock £17 billion savings over the next three years to be reinvested into the NHS in England to improve patient care.
Health Minister, Karin Smyth said:
Neighbourhood Health Centres fundamentally reimagine how the NHS works - bringing care closer to home and making sure the NHS is organised around patients’ needs, not the other way round.
The Chancellor is rightly boosting investment in the NHS after we inherited a health service on its knees – with Lord Darzi’s investigation uncovering a £40 billion black hole. But funding will only get us so far. We need to use every measure available to us, which is why we’re leveraging in private investment to construct some of these centres, making the most of all expertise and every tool at our disposal.
Our new NHS Rebuild approach will give the health service the investment it needs, repurposing and building a new generation of Neighbourhood Health Centres across the country. It will go hand in hand with reform and efficiency – ensuring proper value for money for taxpayers.
The government has already announced sweeping reforms to the NHS with 18,000 posts cut and NHS England merged back into the Department of Health in order to focus investment at the frontline. The move, which is already underway, will, save over £1bn a year by the end of the Parliament – enough to fund 115,000 extra hip and knee operations.
This government has already made significant progress to get the NHS back on its feet, cutting the waiting list by over 200,000 - the biggest reduction in over 15 years - delivering an extra 5.2 million appointments and providing 135,000 more cancer diagnoses within the 28-day target. This progress is only possible with the funding the NHS has already seen from this government, which is built on further in this Budget.
Further information
Ruth Rankine, director of primary care the NHS Confederation said:
The creation of a Neighbourhood Health Service has the potential to empower the NHS to deliver even more patient-first, joined-up care.
Working in partnership with local authorities, the VCSE sector and other partners is key to maximising the impact of these services, so it is welcome that the government is committed to ensuring local leaders have the flexibility to shape them to meet the specific needs of their communities. Bringing teams together under one roof can significantly improve services for the public and patients and provide more cohesive relationships between health and care professionals.
Innovative use of existing estate across the whole of the NHS as well as local authorities, with the potential for new private sector investment, will support the delivery of neighbourhood services and ensure patients can access them more easily closer to home.
- The NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild programme will deliver the Neighbourhood Health Centres through a mixture of refurbishments to expand and improve sites over the next three years, and new-build sites opening in the medium term.
- The new Neighbourhood Health Centres will be delivered through a combination of Public-Private Partnerships and public investment to bring together infrastructure expertise from different sectors to deliver new facilities on time and on budget – so patients across England get faster treatment in new and convenient buildings. By delivering through a combination of private and public investment the government will be able to build further evidence and compare different models of delivery whilst updated accounting treatment will ensure these are recognised up front in public accounts.
- Lord Darzi’s investigation in the summer of 2024 uncovered a £40 billion black hole in the NHS, and we have already uplifted NHS capital budgets by more than 20% over the SR period (23/24-29/30) to start addressing this. NHS England, NHS Providers, and NHS Confederation have all called for additional routes for infrastructure delivery to be made available to further support the repair and transformation of the NHS estate.
- The government’s new programme – NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild – will give the NHS the tools and opportunity it is asking for, repurposing and building a new generation of Neighbourhood Health Centres across the country that are and free at the point of use.
- More than 100 centres will be opened by 2030 including refurbishments to the Alfred Barrow Health Centre in Barrow-in-Furness, the Stockland Green and Summerfield Primary Care Centres in Birmingham, the Jubilee Gardens Centre in Ealing .
- This government will only supplement public investment with private investment where it provides value for money to the taxpayer. This new PPP model will learn lessons from past and current PPP models, and include improvements so that taxpayers get proper value for money.
- Public-private partnership programmes are used internationally, to support delivery of infrastructure.