Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what step his Department plans to take to build neighbourhood health services in partnership with (a) Macmillan and (b) other charities that have experience in (i) designing and (ii) delivering community-based services for people with long-term conditions.

The 10-Year Health Plan sets out our vision for neighbourhood health. The Neighbourhood Health Service will embody our new preventative 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 only in a hospital if necessary.

We expect neighbourhood teams and services to be designed in a way that reflects the specific needs of local populations, and they should be co-designed with communities and system partners. While we will be clear on the outcomes we expect, we will give significant licence to tailor the approach to local need.

Through our National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme, we will work with places across all systems to spread and scale up good practice and learning, create exemplars, and build the culture and capability required for delivery. This will be an inclusive, large-scale change programme for all system partners, including the voluntary, community, and social enterprise sector.

The Department is developing the National Cancer Plan which will seek to foster improved collaboration with partners across the cancer ecosystem, including the voluntary and community sector. We will continue to work closely with Macmillan and other cancer partners as part of our engagement to inform the development of the plan.