The NHS 10-Year Plan: Five opportunities that could transform prevention

By Professor Rob Copeland

As attention turns to delivering the NHS 10-Year Plan’s bold ambitions, Professor Rob Copeland of Sheffield Hallam University argues that its true potential lies in community-based prevention. Drawing on evidence from the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, he sets out five overlooked opportunities that could redefine how the NHS supports population health and tackles inequality.

While recent media coverage has focused on AI promises and workforce expansion, the NHS 10-Year Health Plan for England contains important commitments regarding community-based prevention that could prove just as transformative for health outcomes.

At Sheffield Hallam University’s Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC), we have spent the last five years implementing and evaluating community-based prevention approaches across South Yorkshire. This experience has convinced me that the plan’s intention to shift focus from “sickness to prevention” isn’t just rhetoric, but is the necessary policy focus to re-imagine health and care and tackle inequalities. It won’t just happen, however; it needs investment.

The plan contains specific mechanisms that, if implemented effectively, could revolutionise how hospital leaders think about population health, financial incentives, and community partnerships. Here are five elements worthy of immediate consideration:

1. Health and Growth Accelerators represent an economic-health integration revolution

The plan’s commitment to establish Health and Growth Accelerators across all integrated care boards (ICBs) represents a principle we’ve been advocating for a number of years at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre – that health and economic outcomes are inseparable.

The commitment for all ICBs to establish “specific and measurable outcome targets on their contribution to reducing economic inactivity and unemployment” marks a significant shift in the NHS’s role from a service primarily focused on treating illness to one accountable for population-level economic outcomes. To realise this ambition, the NHS must go beyond policy and actively build the relationships and infrastructure within communities that enable prevention and wellbeing to flourish.

This approach aligns with evidence showing that for every £1 invested in community-led health initiatives, up to £8.56 in social and economic value is generated. It also reflects a growing recognition that “the biggest barriers to better health often lie in systems that make healthy choices difficult for those living in the poorest communities” – a reality we’ve long highlighted, where your postcode still largely determines your health outcomes.

Through our virtual clinic for long-COVID, we’ve demonstrated how community-based approaches can reach underserved populations who might otherwise struggle to access traditional healthcare services. By addressing the social determinants of health – employment, housing, access to green space – we can create measurable improvements in both population health and economic activity.

2. Co-location mandates could revolutionise infrastructure beyond sharing buildings

The plan’s mandate for Neighbourhood Health Centres to “co-locate NHS, local authority and voluntary sector services”, including rehabilitation services, represents the infrastructure revolution we’ve been pioneering at the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine in Sheffield over the past decade.

Our model has facilitated over 120,000 annual clinical appointments in community settings, with nearly half of referrals coming from the most deprived communities. We’ve also seen examples where co-location achieves substantial reductions in secondary care referrals. Ensuring that the majority of the population has access to co-located services within 20 minutes of their home would be transformative in terms of health equity – but we’ve learned that co-location must go beyond physical proximity with success dependent on genuine community ownership and design.

This requires productive partnerships that leverage diverse skills, reduce duplication and drive innovation, prioritising investment in community-led decision making.

3. Value-based payments finally reward prevention over treatment

The plan’s commitment to ‘pay for impact on health outcomes’ represents the most significant opportunity to embed prevention at scale. Our Active Together cancer prehabilitation programme demonstrates exactly what this looks like in practice – we’ve observed a 95 per cent one-year survival rate compared to 85 per cent for non-participants, with estimated net savings of £366.36 per patient.

The introduction of Year of Care Payments that incentivise keeping patients healthy rather than treating illness represents a fundamental shift we’ve been arguing for. These payments consolidate all primary care, community health, mental health, specialist outpatient care, and emergency services into single capitated budgets, creating sharp incentives to invest in prevention rather than just treat illness, and providing a powerful drive to develop the aforementioned relationships and infrastructure with community organisations that will be essential for keeping people well.

4. Prevention workforce development remains critically underdeveloped

Despite the plan’s prevention rhetoric, it overlooks the importance of equipping existing staff with prevention skills. This reflects a missed opportunity to make rapid, yet meaningful progress. We know from our work that healthcare professionals need practical skills to have meaningful conversations about physical activity, movement, and lifestyle. The Physical Activity Clinical Champions (PACC) programme has upskilled over 58,000 healthcare workers across England, creating the capability, capacity and scalability for a prevention-focused workforce.

The plan’s commitment to overhauling education and training curricula over the next three years creates the perfect opportunity to embed physical activity promotion as a core competency. Our integrated curriculum approach at Sheffield Hallam University shows how this can work – but it requires systematic commitment, not just good intentions. Without workforce development, the prevention shift risks remaining aspirational rather than operational.

5. Prehabilitation represents untapped potential beyond cancer care

The plan’s limited detail on prehabilitation programmes represents a significant gap, particularly given the evidence of their impacts across multiple conditions and surgical outcomes. While we’ve demonstrated clinical and economic benefits in cancer care through initiatives like our Active Together programme, the potential extends far beyond oncology to orthopaedics, cardiac surgery, and other planned procedures.

Community-based prehabilitation programmes that address barriers such as geographic location and socioeconomic status create more resilient populations while reducing system pressure. Our research demonstrates that addressing common barriers to access promotes inclusivity and achieves better health outcomes for all populations.

We call for a comprehensive rehabilitation (including prehabilitation) guarantee across all ICBs by the end of this Parliament – not just for cancer care, but as a systematic approach to building population resilience across all planned procedures and long-term conditions. The evidence base exists; what’s missing is systematic implementation across the NHS.

Local innovation must bridge the implementation gaps

The plan’s success depends on local innovation to bridge the aforementioned implementation gaps in terms of capability and capacity. Therefore, hospital leaders should be supported and encouraged to focus on immediate actions such as developing prevention capabilities within existing teams via PACC training, establishing meaningful partnerships with community assets through embedded and co-funded roles, and designing prehabilitation into the pathways of planned procedures, including those that extend beyond traditional clinical boundaries.

We invite hospital leaders to visit the AWRC at the Sheffield Olympic Legacy Park to see these approaches in action. The evidence is compelling, the methods are established, and the time for action is now. As the NHS implements its 10-Year Plan, we have a unique opportunity to create a healthcare system that doesn’t just treat illness but purposefully promotes health for all communities.

UK’s first AI-powered physio more than halves back pain waiting lists

By Integrated Care Journal

A new CQC-approved, AI-powered physiotherapy clinic, which provides same-day appointments for back pain via a smartphone app, has more than halved waiting lists for back pain in its first large-scale deployment in England.

The UK’s first AI-powered physiotherapy clinic has shown promising results in its first large-scale deployment in the NHS in England.

Called Flok Health, the clinic was created by a team of physiotherapy and AI experts based in Cambridge and saw its first large-scale UK deployment earlier this year, when it was rolled out to more than a million patients by NHS Lothian in Scotland.

The clinic is the first digital musculoskeletal (MSK) service to have been approved by the CQC, and has also achieved medical device certification under MHRA regulations.

Created using video footage of a human physiotherapist, the pioneering digital clinic is able to offer NHS patients personalised treatment for back pain at population scale, with zero waitlist, in a setting which feels like a video call with a physiotherapist.

The technology was deployed in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough in February by Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust (CCS): the first NHS organisation in England to make Flok’s AI clinic available to patients across a range of community healthcare settings including self-referred and clinician-referred patients.

According to the NHS, over 30 million working days are lost to MSK conditions like back pain every year in the UK, with MSK problems accounting for up to 30 per cent of GP appointments. Addressing the causes of ill health and economic inactivity will be key to the government’s efforts to relieve pressure on care services, as well as to turn the NHS into an engine of economic growth.

Mike Passfield, Deputy Director from Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust, commented: “We’re proud to have been the first NHS organisation in England to deploy Flok Health’s AI powered physiotherapy clinic at scale. The impact has been extraordinary, delivering same-day access to care for thousands of patients, reducing back pain waiting lists by over 50 per cent, and freeing up clinicians to focus on other patients with complex MSK conditions.”

AI tackles MSK waits in Cambridgeshire

Patients living in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough were able to access Flok over a twelve-week period between the beginning of February and the end of May 2025.

This was part of a pilot deployment commissioned by CCS in partnership with the GIRFT Further Faster Programme – an initiative bringing together NHS clinicians and operational teams to improve access and waiting times for patients.

When the AI clinic first went live in Cambridgeshire, waiting times for elective community musculoskeletal (MSK) services in the region stood at eighteen weeks.

*An appointment question on the Flok Health clinic (click to enlarge)*

Over the course of twelve weeks, the deployment of Flok (in combination with initiatives including MSK “superclinics” and community assessment days) reduced waiting times for all MSK conditions across CCS by 44 per cent, to under 10 weeks.

One patient, Sharon McMahon, a primary school teacher from Hardwick, revealed the impact that Flok had on her recovery following an incidence of back pain that left her unable to work for two weeks: “An NHS physio suggested I try Flok. I was initially disappointed not to be receiving face-to-face care. I’m not disappointed now. The AI clinic has delivered exactly the same results as I’d expect from a traditional physio – and much more quickly.

“I started my treatment the same day, and was able to get appointments and complete exercises whenever I liked. My back was back to normal after a couple of weeks, but I’m still using the app twice a week to manage pain when I get flare ups or spasms.

“If it wasn’t for Flok, I might still be waiting for an in-person appointment or be paying to see someone privately. I’d recommend the app to anyone.”

Flok’s AI clinic – the only intervention deployed specifically to treat back pain – exclusively reduced waiting lists for back pain by 55 per cent, and saved 856 hours of clinician time per month within the Trust.

Patients who accessed Flok’s digital service were able to do so immediately, experiencing waits of zero days.

Of the patients treated via the AI pathway, fewer than 2 per cent requested or required referral to a traditional face-to-face service. That means more than 98 per cent were triaged, treated and discharged via the digital service, relieving pressure on existing pathways and enabling clinicians to see patients who wanted or needed face-to-face appointments faster and for longer.

More than 2,500 patients living in Cambridge and Peterborough accessed the AI clinic over the twelve-week period.

AI physiotherapy exceeds patient satisfaction targets

After using Flok Health, 8 in 10 (80 per cent) patients in Cambridgeshire reported that their experience with Flok had been “equivalent or better” than traditional face-to-face physiotherapy.

78 per cent of patients reported that their overall experience with Flok had been “good” or “very good”, exceeding patient satisfaction targets set by CCS at the outset of the project.

Mike Passfield added: “What matters most to us is making sure patients get the right care quickly and safely and this pilot has shown that innovation like Flok can truly transform how we deliver services.

“This pilot has demonstrated how innovation, when safely and thoughtfully integrated into

NHS pathways, can dramatically improve access, outcomes and patient experience. We look forward to working with Flok to explore how this service can be scaled across our region to benefit even more people.”

Finn Stevenson, co-Founder and CEO of Flok Health, said: “Seeing the impact our service has had in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough – which is also where our team lives and works – has been incredibly meaningful.

“Our AI clinic enables patients to access world-class MSK care immediately, whilst freeing up traditional clinical capacity for patients who want or need to see a clinician in person.

“We look forward to continuing to work closely with our innovative NHS partners to deliver gold-standard, scalable MSK care to patients in Cambridgeshire and across the UK.”

Data from an early trial at Cambridge University Hospitals in 2023 indicated that the AI clinic had helped reduce wait times for physiotherapy, with wait lists for in-person musculoskeletal appointments increasing by more than 50 per cent once the pilot had ended and the AI clinic was no longer in use.

Following the success of the pilot, Flok is working with CCS to explore permanently rolling out the digital service to patients in the region.

*Flok co-Founders Ric da Silva (L) and Finn Stevenson (R)*

Featured, News, Systems, Thought Leadership August 6, 2025

From plan to practice: Reacting to the 10-Year Plan in Greater Manchester

By David Duffy

At a recent dinner hosted by Public Policy Projects and HealthPathways, senior NHS and public health leaders from across Greater Manchester came together to reflect on the challenge that now sits at the heart of health reform in England: how to translate the ambitions of the NHS 10-Year Plan into real, measurable improvements in the lives of citizens.

The meeting, held against the backdrop of a period of seismic reform for the NHS and wider care system, revealed both the promise and pain points of system integration. Stakeholders present emphasised leadership, system-wide data use, behaviour change, and trust as critical enablers of transformation. Participants included NHS trust CEOs, ICS leaders, clinicians, and senior public health officials from across Greater Manchester, considered to be one of the most integrated health systems in England.

The dinner also featured a presentation from HealthPathways Advisor, David Meates, who previously led the integrated Canterbury Health System in New Zealand. HealthPathways supports clinicians across New Zealand, Australia, and the UK by providing access to evidence-based best practices at the point of care. Its system-wide approach to care pathway redesign has demonstrated significant benefits for patients, staff, and health systems. Notably, its work with New Zealand’s Canterbury District Health Board resulted in marked improvements in productivity and patient outcomes across the system, highlighting the importance of prioritising cultural change, intelligent incentivisation, and ongoing community and patient engagement.

Despite widespread agreement about the direction set out in the 10-Year Plan, there was a clear sense from the meeting that national policy has so far failed to address the deeper behavioural, cultural and financial architecture that will determine whether the plan succeeds or fails.

A region built for integration, still struggling with fragmentation

Greater Manchester, with its devolved governance model and longstanding commitment to integration, is arguably the most fertile ground in England for delivering on the ambitions of the 10-Year Plan. With nine provider trusts and deep collaboration with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the region has made major advances in data sharing, population health management, and broader public service alignment.

However, challenges for the region remain stark. There remain significant post-Covid performance pressures, and Greater Manchester has some of the longest waiting lists in the country, in addition to large-scale financial deficits. “We’ve built some of the most sophisticated integrated data infrastructure in the UK,” said one attendee, “but we still face fundamental problems of access and inequality.”

As one trust leader put it, “We’ve made progress, but we haven’t yet cracked the problem of how to enable the system to truly work as one.”

Vagueness as virtue or risk?

The 10-Year Plan has been welcomed in Greater Manchester for its broad framing and long-term outlook. However, delegates argued that the plan’s perceived vagueness is a liability to tangible service improvement. “The plan leaves the hard questions, such as trade-offs, funding and prioritisation, on the table,” one participant said. “NHS England makes a virtue of this in order to give local leaders space to develop local solutions. However, we need clarity about who is empowered to answer those questions locally.”

David Meates pointed to the opportunity inherent in this ambiguity. “Don’t wait for the centre to tell you what to do,” he said. “Use that space. Make it yours.”

There was widespread agreement that success now depends on local leaders stepping into that gap, with both strategy and delivery. “This isn’t a conversation we can leave in Whitehall,” one attendee reflected. “This is about what we do locally.”

Lessons from New Zealand

Many of the issues faced by David Meates when he took over the Canterbury system have clear parallels to NHS struggles, including a fragmented system and a lack of local cohesion. As Meates articulated, exponential increases in funding from previous New Zealand governments had yielded little to no improvement in service delivery, productivity or patient outcomes.

Meates’ team sought to create a framework for “a connected system, centred around people, that aimed not to waste their time”. This was built upon three core strategic objectives:

People take greater responsibility for their own health
People stay well in their own homes and communities
People receive timely and appropriate care

Crucial to addressing these issues was the creation of the community-based HealthPathways, aimed at improving the interface between secondary and primary care. After reviewing a backlog of referrals, clinicians identified that many common issues could have been prevented through better communication between hospitals and primary care providers. GPs and hospital specialists were then brought together to agree on optimal management and referral pathways for specific conditions. The HealthPathways methodology is currently gaining traction as an approach across the Northern hemisphere, including England and Wales.

The left shift: Still a distant reality?

Participants echoed a now-familiar frustration: that the NHS continues to talk about shifting care into the community while still funnelling most funding and attention toward acute settings. “NHS England isn’t taking the left shift as seriously as the Greater Manchester system is,” one leader argued.

There was deep concern that the national focus on individual provider performance and waiting list targets was actively pulling against the system logic of integration and prevention. “If we keep paying for activity, we’ll keep getting activity,” one speaker noted. “We need to change what we value and how we fund it.”

Instead of continuing to reward throughput, participants called for an urgent shift toward outcomes-based funding. “The current incentives are not aligned with what patients actually need or what the system is trying to achieve,” said another attendee.

From data to delivery

Several leaders highlighted the power of Greater Manchester’s linked datasets, which have begun to reveal critical insights into unmet need, health inequality, and clinical variation across the region. One senior clinical lead described how analysts had used linked data to identify patients receiving suboptimal care, stratify risk, and deploy neighbourhood teams to intervene.

“We’ve used data to change how we deliver care at the local level, but the opportunity is far bigger,” they said. “This is about system-wide intelligence, not just analytics.”

However, others warned that data alone would not deliver change. “We’ve got brilliant information,” one attendee noted, “but unless it’s made usable, and unless we align it with pathways and accountability, it’s just noise.”

One participant summed up the challenge: “Change happens at the speed of trust. If the system doesn’t trust the data, or the people using it, it won’t move.”

The cultural fault lines: Professions, power, and permission

The discussion often turned to the deeper cultural and behavioural dynamics holding the system back. Professional silos, legacy power structures, and the politics of hierarchy were seen as major obstacles.

“We [system partners] have irritated each other for years,” said one participant. “The radicals and the pragmatists, the commissioners and the providers. And we’re still stuck with binary questions such as: who controls the money? Who owns the patient?”

Several attendees emphasised the need to move beyond organisational identities toward collective purpose. One leader said: “There’s no such thing as integrated neighbourhood teams if you don’t have full primary care at the table. We need inclusive leadership, and we need to stop second-guessing what communities want.”

Others argued for a more clinician-led approach to transformation. “You can’t prescribe behaviour change to doctors,” one attendee noted. “Ask them to define the problem and let them solve it. That’s where the buy-in comes from.”

Funding, incentives, and the problem of productivity

A recurring theme was the mismatch between national funding mechanisms and local ambitions. “Strategic commissioning? Wasn’t commissioning always supposed to be strategic?” one participant asked.

Several leaders warned that simply rebranding roles or structures, without real changes to financial flows, will have little to no impact. “The incentives are still fundamentally wrong,” said one. “And if we don’t fix that, the 10-Year Plan is just a dream.”

There was a strong appetite for exploring new financial models, especially those that allowed local areas to reinvest savings, take managed risks, and move money around the system to meet citizen needs. “If you’re funding institutions, you protect institutions. If you’re funding outcomes, you protect people.”

Reimagining public health as everyone’s business

Public health leaders voiced concern that prevention still sits too far outside the core machinery of the NHS. One commented: “We have to stop defining health in such a narrow way. The system still treats public health as someone else’s job.”

David Meates noted that in Canterbury, integrating public health into mainstream service delivery had been one of the toughest challenges, but the most essential. “Public health has to be seen as a system-wide priority,” he said. “It’s about changing the narrative, not just the structure.”

Others called for a broader conceptualisation of prevention beyond the medical model, one which encompasses education, employment, housing, and lifestyle. “Hairdressers are frontline,” one leader said, “and professions such as taxi drivers should be considered part of the health system.”

From rhetoric to results

The dinner concluded with a clear message: the opportunities presented by the 10-Year Health Plan are real, but only if local systems seize them and develop local solutions in collaboration with system partners.

“We have to stop waiting for permission,” said one attendee. “Use alliance agreements. Build partnerships. Change the story from ‘I’ to ‘we’.”

As one final reflection summarised: “This is about codifying change, not just for the boardroom, but for the clinic, the pharmacy, the community centre. The 10-Year Plan won’t work because it’s written down. It’ll work because people make it work together.”

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Bringing the NHS 10-Year Health Plan to life: Lessons from the frontline

By David Meates

As momentum builds around England’s 10-Year Health Plan, three weeks of national conversations reveal a common theme: clarity of purpose, but deep concern about delivery. Drawing on insights from health leaders across Newcastle, Manchester and London, David Meates, Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, explores three critical shifts needed to turn vision into lasting change.

Over the past three weeks in the UK, one detail has explicitly stood out for me. The clarity of purpose in every room I’ve been in.

I’ve been fortunate to participate in a series of forums and conversations across Newcastle, Manchester, and London with a key focus on the 10-Year Health Plan for England. Energy and engagement has been central to each of these discussions. Each conversation boiled down to a clear focus and purpose going forward – to create a future-focused health and care system that shifts from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from treating sickness to preventing it occurring.

The ambition is bold and correctly placed. The challenge lies not in the vision, but in the execution. The critical question we’re all asking is – how do we turn this vision into something real?

The plan has generated cautious optimism, but also a shared awareness of the significant obstacles we currently face. Fiscal pressures, workforce shortages, long waiting lists, outdated systems, and real-time access issues all cast a long shadow over future ambitions.

The fact is, accelerating our current approach or upgrading our tools alone won’t be sufficient to reach our destination. Something deeper is required.

I believe that three fundamental shifts are required to deliver on the promises outlined in the 10-Year Plan.

1. Restoring hope and trust

At the heart of every effective health system is hope. The quiet, daily belief that things can get better. This belief is what drives the immense effort from all health professionals, despite relentless pressures.

Hope has always been a currency in health. But it’s also fragile. And right now, many in the system have noted this hope slipping away.

NHS professionals I spoke with across the country described feeling overwhelmed, disillusioned, and exhausted. They’re still committed to their patients, but trust in the system, and in its leaders, is wearing thin. Ongoing frustration due to decision making that seems disconnected or random is a common trend. Secondly, the restructuring processes that feel more about prioritising image over real impact

One comment stayed with me:

“We’re under more pressure than ever as I try to do my best for my patients and the system.”

It’s time we acknowledged that truth and acted on it.

Restoring hope starts with rebuilding trust. That means showing up consistently as leaders. It means involving people in the decisions that shape their work and listening to their insight, not just collecting feedback after the fact. Most importantly, it means creating safe environments where people feel supported to do the right thing – not blamed when something goes wrong.

The health system’s greatest asset isn’t a piece of tech or a shiny new facility. It’s the continuous effort of the people who power it. When that effort disappears, or individuals lose hope, everything slows – decision-making, responsiveness, innovation. Reigniting that belief is not a soft ambition. It’s a hard necessity.

2. Simplifying the system

Health and care are inherently complex. But over time, complexity has been layered upon complexity, creating systems so convoluted that even those within them can’t easily explain how they work.

When a system becomes too complicated to navigate or understand, trust and confidence begin to erode. Efficiency suffers. The focus shifts from patient-centred care to managing processes, and decision-making becomes paralysed by layers of governance and red tape.

We must simplify. Not by dumbing things down, but by designing for clarity and connection.

In Canterbury, New Zealand, where I helped lead a decade-long transformation of the health system, we faced a similarly fragmented landscape. One of the most effective enablers we developed was HealthPathways – a platform that helped us agree, document, and communicate how care should be delivered across the system.

HealthPathways was more than a website. It was a living, breathing model of shared clinical decision-making. It brought together hospital clinicians, GPs, nurses, social care providers, and community organisations to answer a fundamental question: How do we do it around here?

It became our shared operating model – linking hospital and community, translating policy into practice, and integrating digital tools with real-world care. Most importantly, it helped rebuild trust and alignment across the system.

Importantly it made the system legible again, something that captured local reality while still being evidence-informed. And it was something that simplified – not added to – the work of delivering great care.

3. Unleashing the workforce

One of the most striking things about the health sector is that it’s filled with incredibly bright, capable people. Clinicians, managers, administrators, volunteers, many who are natural problem solvers. They see the issues every day, and they often know how to fix them.

But far too often, we tie their hands.

When decision-making becomes too removed from the point of care, responsiveness grinds to a halt. The urgency and nuance of frontline issues are lost in the shuffle of distant approval chains. The result? A system that reacts to crises instead of preventing them. A system held together by band-aids rather than built on resilience.

Empowerment isn’t just about giving people freedom, it’s about enabling them to flourish.

The people delivering care need to know their judgement is valued and that their leaders will back them when they take the right risks for the right reasons. Blame cultures, micromanagement, and punitive accountability systems have no place in a future-focused health service.

“Let me solve the problem with my team. We know what to do, we just need the space to do it.”

This was the common cry from across the system. The good news is, we don’t need to invent new capabilities. We simply need to remove the obstacles that are blocking the ones we already have.

A final thought

The 10-Year Plan is an important and necessary roadmap. But roadmaps are only useful if we’re willing to start walking. What’s needed now is not another layer of strategy, but a renewed commitment to the people who will make the change real.

That means restoring hope. Not with slogans, but with visible, supportive leadership. It means simplifying a system that has become too complicated for its own good. And it means unlocking the talent that’s already here, waiting for the signal that it’s both safe and encouraged to lead.

If we can do that, the future of health and care in England isn’t just possible. It’s already within reach.

About David Meates

David is an accomplished health system innovator most noted for his time as CEO of the Canterbury District Health Board leading the Canterbury Initiative. David is a frequent commentator and presenter on health system transformation and the role that HealthPathways can play within it.

Why we need challenger thinking to help realise the NHS 10-Year Plan

By Dr Harry Thirkettle

To realise the ambitions of the 10-Year Health Plan, the NHS must embrace the mindset of challenger brands, putting user needs first, rethinking legacy systems, and building the digital infrastructure needed to deliver truly joined-up, preventative care, writes Dr Harry Thirkettle, Head of Health Innovation at Aire Logic.

As a former NHS surgeon and now a clinical entrepreneur at Aire Logic, an employee-owned, B-Corp certified tech consultancy, I’ve seen the NHS’s challenges and potential up close. The NHS 10-Year Health Plan offers a bold vision to transform England’s healthcare system. Its three key shifts (from sickness to prevention, from analogue to digital, and from hospitals to communities) are both necessary and ambitious. To make this vision a reality though, we must embrace purpose-driven innovation and build a robust digital infrastructure.

By 2040, 9.1 million people in England are projected to live with major illnesses, many in deprived areas facing earlier diagnoses. The plan’s focus on prevention aims to ease this burden through early intervention and healthier lifestyles, making the healthy choice the easy choice.

The shift to digital delivery is equally vital. By using technology, the NHS can make healthcare as accessible as online banking or shopping.

Central to the digital shift is the single patient record, a unified platform accessible via the NHS App. This could consolidate GP visits, hospital records and test results, enabling seamless care coordination, reducing errors and empowering patients. For example, a patient moving from hospital to community care would benefit from real-time data access, avoiding delays or duplication. But better care starts with better infrastructure. That means making systems talk, and data flow because ultimately this is what gives patients more control. When access improves, outcomes improve, and everyone wins. Prevention really is the most powerful form of care.

We are still scarred by past NHS IT projects, like the National Programme for IT, which highlighted the risks of fragmented systems and poor execution. Current records are often held locally, with limited integration. Overcoming this requires significant investment and a genuine commitment to interoperability. Public trust in data security is also critical, especially with third-party providers involved. Transparent communication and robust safeguards are essential to address privacy concerns.

Embracing challenger thinking

To deliver this transformation, we need challenger thinking, inspired by industries like banking. Companies like Monzo disrupted traditional models by designing user-centric platforms. Similarly, the NHS must prioritise the needs of patients and clinicians, creating intuitive systems that simplify health management. This means moving beyond legacy infrastructure to design a digital ecosystem that is seamless and efficient.

The plan’s proposal to use AI as a ‘trusted assistant’ for clinicians is a step in this direction. AI could streamline administrative tasks, analyse data and support decision-making, freeing up time for patient care but this requires a cultural shift within the NHS. We need to shift from scepticism to embrace technology, supported by training for staff so they know how to use it effectively.

The scope for transforming healthcare is vast. The implementation of a single patient record could fundamentally alter care delivery, provide substantial cost savings and empower data-driven research for improved public health outcomes. Community-based care aligns with the growing prevalence of chronic conditions, easing pressure on hospitals. Yet, challenges remain.

Integrating local systems into a national platform is complex, and public trust must be earned through transparency and robust data security. If digital and community are to take over from hospitals it requires a seamless, joined-up infrastructure and central to this will be achieving a single patient record that follows individuals across settings. Without that foundation, we risk layering innovation on top of fragmentation.

The NHS 10-Year Health Plan offers a transformative roadmap for the health and care service. Success, however, will require challenger thinking to design systems around user needs, not legacy constraints. When it comes to health tech, we need suppliers who truly enable change and help create a more connected, proactive and sustainable health and care system.

A people-led digital NHS: Aligning technology to purpose for real transformation

By Kath Dean

As the NHS charts a digital future through the new 10-Year Plan, technology alone won’t deliver the transformation needed, warns Kath Dean. Real change depends on redesigning processes, investing in people, and aligning tools to purpose – with safety, outcomes, and collaboration at the core.

The new 10-Year Plan for the NHS in England outlines a clear vision for a digitally-enabled health service. Acknowledging a service left behind, in terms of a modern user experience compared to other sectors and other countries, is absolutely right. However, our healthcare teams and their supporting supplier community know that technology alone will not drive the service transformation needed. That shift requires investment in people, process, culture and collaboration.

Long-term, sustainable service transformation is a journey, built-on tech, used by people and beholden to processes. Bridging the gap between them –redesigning more efficient, safer processes that work for frontline teams, operational staff, and their patients – must come first.

Invest in outcomes, enabled by technology

The NHS may be a “20th century technological laggard”, but that’s not because of a lack of investment in software and solutions. What has been missing is the alignment of technology to purpose and an unwavering focus on outcomes. Without this approach, the NHS runs the risk of repeating past mistakes, procuring expensive solutions that don’t meet evidence-based need.

Digital investment cannot be measured by infrastructure alone. The emphasis on AI, improvements to the NHS App, and the ambition to deliver a Single Patient Record are all positive steps. But if we focus on solutions before defining the problems they’re meant to solve, we risk repeating past mistakes: expensive rollouts that deliver complexity rather than clarity.

True digital productivity isn’t achieved when clinicians spend more time on their computers. It’s when technology frees them to spend more time with their patients. Every tool should be evaluated against this standard: Does it reduce burden? Does it improve safety? Does it enable better outcomes?

Redesign processes, building on safety

Much of the billions of pounds invested in digital infrastructure to date has been spent on implementing systems rather than understanding and transforming how health and care professionals actually work. True digital maturity and realisation of sustainable benefits means embedding usability principles from day one.

Rapid implementation and a system go-live tick the ‘success’ box in many cases. Ways of working are often ignored or not considered, made to fit the system without any consultation. On the busy frontline, this adds to an already heavy burden.

Clinical risk management is also, too often, a late consideration – a post-implementation afterthought. This approach fails to recognise the uncomfortable truth that we are potentially introducing new digital pathways that could put patients at risk of harm.

A far better approach would be to treat every workflow change, every new alert, every data integration point as we do with new medications, i.e., introduce them only after rigorous safety testing. Patient safety demands nothing less.

Value data as the foundation of sustainable change

Reliable, accessible data is the foundation of sustainable digital transformation. If we want to shift from reactive care to proactive, preventive models and move care safely beyond hospital walls, then we must embrace data, not just as a by-product, but as a strategic asset.

This requires more than just new systems. It requires a cultural shift: building data literacy across the workforce, fostering trust in how data is used, and ensuring that information is high-quality, governed transparently, and held securely.

With that foundation, we can unlock smarter resource planning, real-time operational insight, and more personalised care pathways. But none of this will be possible if data remains siloed, misunderstood, or mistrusted.

People, partners, purpose = realisation

Delivering the NHS’s digital future will require more than good intentions and clever technology. It’s about supporting people to work differently in a digital environment, embedding confidence, capability, and continuous improvement. That requires collaboration with trusted partners with proven technical and clinical experience, a pragmatic approach and genuine desire to effect the change the NHS needs and deserves.

By aligning technology to purpose, and putting people and safety at the heart of every decision, we can create a health and care system that’s not only more efficient but also fairer, safer, and more responsive to the needs of patients and staff alike.

Kath Dean is President of Cloud21 Ltd.

Council of Deans of Health unveils key findings on educator challenges and opportunities

By Integrated Care Journal

Two new reports into the state of the academic educator workforce across nursing, midwifery and allied health professionals (AHPs) in the UK’s universities and colleges make recommendations aimed at improving educator capacity and embedding a sustainable academic educator strategy across the sector.

The Council of Deans of Health has published two Academic Educator Workforce Survey reports following extensive research undertaken in August 2024 into the state of the academic educator workforce across nursing, midwifery and the allied health professions (AHPs) in the UK’s universities and colleges.

The Council of Deans of Health represents the UK’s strategic academic leaders in healthcare education and research.

The two reports present a comprehensive analysis of the challenges and opportunities shaping the future of the educator workforce in these critical fields. Drawing on the experiences of university educators across nursing, midwifery and the AHPs, the reports identify challenges, barriers and facilitators in recruitment, retention and career development.

The findings reveal several key factors affecting the educator workforce, including wider sector financial sustainability challenges, pressures to increase student and apprenticeship numbers, team profiles and skills gaps. The reports explore how these factors are impacting curriculum delivery, the administrative workload and shortfalls in educator recruitment.

In addition to recruitment, the reports examine staff retention and career development, highlighting the implications for staff retention and a loss of experience, at a time when health education is becoming ever more complex. They examine leadership profiles and their impact on programme planning and support, as well as opportunities for career progression.

The reports set out strategic actions aimed at improving educator capacity and embedding a sustainable academic educator strategy across the sector. These recommendations are designed to be scalable and adaptable, offering a practical roadmap for institutions and stakeholders to address workforce challenges collaboratively and effectively.

Key recommendations include:

Promote the diversity of opportunities and roles for academic educators in health care and highlight success stories of academic leaders to attract more health professionals to careers in education.
Encourage universities to provide structured pathways for career progression, ensuring that educators have clear opportunities for advancement and professional growth.
Support partnerships between universities and practice partners to co-produce solutions to enable more flexible contracts and working arrangements for staff in academia and clinical practice.
Provide clear guidance on workload management and set realistic expectations for both students and staff.

Ed Hughes, CEO at the Council of Deans of Health, said: “A sustainable and properly supported academic workforce is essential to providing the health care professionals of the future. Our research, based on extensive feedback from our members, highlights the pressures which they face in recruiting, retaining and supporting academic staff in nursing, midwifery and the allied health professions. It’s vital that we work together with health and education system leaders, employers and funders to address these challenges.

Our recommendations point towards a joined-up approach to align the incentives to attract and retain academic educators. We will continue working with our members to support them to educate the next generation of health professionals, equipping students to work in new ways in a rapidly changing world.”

Raising the bar: Why clinical standards are essential for the responsible use of tech in healthcare

By Julian Coe

Digital tools like Ambient Voice Technology are redefining primary care – but with great power comes great responsibility. Julian Coe, Managing Director at X-on Health, explains why robust clinical standards are not barriers to innovation, but the bedrock of trustworthy, scalable, and safe digital transformation in the NHS.

As primary care evolves, digital innovation offers a practical way to support clinicians and improve patient care. Digital telephony has been widely adopted but there is much that can be done to improve the utilisation of the advanced features now available, and Ambient Voice Technology (AVT) is increasingly part of this conversation – not as a distant ambition, but as a sensible step forward. With such powerful tools, however, comes the responsibility to implement them thoughtfully and ethically.

The recent NHS England letter advising primary care providers to halt the use of AVT that does not meet stringent specifications served as a clarifying moment. It makes clear to all stakeholders that while the promise of AI is strong, governance, safety, and data protection must come first. These aren’t constraints –in reality, they are the foundation of meaningful and safe innovation.

Clinical safety standards have been in place since 2012, and for good reason. Too often, they are framed as red tape but that’s a fundamental misunderstanding. Standards like DCB0160 and structured Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs) are not obstacles, they are accelerators of safe and scalable innovation, and need to be embraced. As a legal requirement, they ensure management invests in making sufficient resources available, and when implemented thoughtfully, they serve as quality control systems that enhance, rather than inhibit, digital transformation.

On a wider scale, the UK is considered to have a robust and responsible regulatory system by international standards, having only recently branched away from the EU. The UK still very much mirrors EU regulations, although the direction of travel in the UK is towards clarification, a greater risk-based approach, but to remain internationally harmonised. The government vision is for the UK to be the best place to develop AI and healthtech responsibly, allowing it to be used in the UK and around the world.

With this in mind, we must remember that healthcare is not like other sectors: the cost of error is potentially high and personal, the margin for misjudgement is slim, and as a supplier, the trust we hold with clinicians is of utmost importance. In healthcare, we have to do things in an evidence-driven way, and clinical standards, therefore, must not only be met, they must be elevated.

Building trust through standards

AVT, when built on strong clinical standards, offers truly transformative potential. Designed to automate the generation of clinical notes, referral letters and administrative tasks in real time, these tools can operate during face-to-face, telephone and video consultations.

Some providers are now offering AVT tools and AI scribes that integrate seamlessly into existing practice workflows and telephony systems. For example, Surgery Intellect powered by Tortus AI will be integrated into our digital telephony system. It listens to consultations and automatically generates accurate clinical notes, referral letters, clinical coding, and administrative tasks in real-time. It’s accessible to all GP practices, regardless of a practice’s current telephony provider, through our software, ensuring that no surgery is excluded due to infrastructure constraints.

When done correctly, AVT tools don’t simply record, they understand, contextualise, and accurately summarise clinical interactions. The result is not merely increased efficiency but enhanced clinical confidence, and doctors that feel better in providing more time for their patients.

The combination of our product offerings will provide surgeries with their first comprehensive intelligent care navigation system. By integrating into the NHS App and clinical management systems, and using the latest technology including AVT and AI voice agents, we will free significant additional clinical time for every surgery.

But functionality alone is insufficient. What underpins trust in such systems is rigorous adherence to frameworks and standards, robust data protection protocols, and a governance-first approach.

Delivering a governance-informed approach

As one of the largest healthtech companies in primary care in the UK, we handle over 40 million calls every month and have a duty of care to ensure that our services meet and exceed all specifications. Many organisations are looking into AI medical scribes, but only a few are committed to achieve the highest level of clinical safety standards.

Partnerships play a critical role in ensuring these new technologies align with NHS expectations and we’ve collaborated with a select few organisations known for their governance-first approach and know that a rigorous approach to clinical safety shows how safety can be adopted into the fabric of a company’s innovation, rather than being seen as an unwelcome overhead.

In addition to our own external Clinical Safety Officer, we have also commissioned a specialist advisory firm to hold us to account, so GP practices can confidently adopt our cutting-edge AI technologies knowing they meet NHS clinical safety standards and data protection requirements. We believe safety and speed, when aligned through proper governance, can go hand-in-hand.

Beyond compliance, toward transformation

The future of AI in healthcare will be shaped not by who moves the fastest, but by who moves the safest and we are confident that our product will be the first available to primary care that will gain Class IIa medical device approval. Many AVT solutions may appear impressive in demonstrations, but only those able to meet and exceed NHS clinical safety standards will stand the test of scale and scrutiny.

Innovation without governance is a gamble. Governance without innovation is stagnation. The NHS deserves both: the boldness to embrace cutting-edge technologies and the discipline to hold them to the highest clinical and ethical standards.

As we continue to navigate this digital evolution in healthcare, clinical standards must remain our guide. Not only do they protect patients and clinicians, but they also create the conditions for the kind of sustainable, transformative innovation that primary care so urgently needs.

The future of healthcare AI doesn’t belong to those who innovate recklessly, and safety is not a one-off thing. It belongs to those who understand that true progress is governed, tested, and trusted. In the inspired words of Dr Dom Pimenta, CEO of Tortus AI, we should move as fast as we can, but as slow as we need to.

Julian Coe, Managing Director, X-on Health

Delivering on the NHS 10-Year Plan: Financial flows, workforce, and integrating care

By Gabriel Blaazer

As the government sets out its 10-Year Health Plan, health leaders gathered to discuss the critical enablers of long-term transformation – from fixing fragmented funding flows and investing in digital capability, to equipping the workforce and tackling the wider determinants of health. Can collaboration and local adaptation turn strategy into sustainable change?

On 10 July 2025, Salma Yasmeen (Chief Executive, Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS Foundation Trust), Dr Toli Onon (Joint Chief Medical Officer and Responsible Officer at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and incoming Chief Inspector of Hospitals, CQC) and Siobhan Melia (Chief Executive, Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust and National Adviser for Community Health Services, NHS England), joined PPP and PwC for a specially convened breakfast meeting, exploring next steps following the publication of the 10-Year Health Plan.

Chaired by PPP Chair, the Rt Hon. Stephen Dorrell, and held under the Chatham House Rule, the meeting addressed some of the key implications for health and care services now that the 10-Year Plan has been made public.

Fixing fragmented funding flows

Multiple speakers and attendees highlighted the need to reform NHS financial flows, and in particular, block contracts, which hinder system responsiveness and effective resource allocation. Transitioning to activity and outcome-based funding models, such as year-of-care tariffs, was cited as complex but the direction of travel the NHS should aim for. As the Darzi Report highlighted, acute sector spending has increased from 47 per cent in 2006 to 58 per cent today – a ‘right drift’ rather than the left shift that has been pursued by successive governments, both in the UK and abroad.

As such, current funding models run contrary to the ambitions expressed in the 10-Year Plan, particularly shifting more care away from hospital settings. Since patient journeys span sector siloes, a genuinely integrated and aligned funding model would see financial resources following the patient, not the institution or provider; or, as one speaker explained: “we need funding to flow across interfaces.”

“If you’re a system in deficit, nine times out of 10 that deficit sits within the acute trust; Payment by Results creates a cultural disincentive to trade your way out of financial problems.”

There was particular weight given to shifting investment into partnerships that deliver outcomes for defined cohorts, rather than individual services. “If we can work out how money can flow into partnerships of integration…and incentivise providers collectively to deliver the right outcomes for patients, that would be a gamechanger,” said one speaker.

*(L-R) Dr Toli Onon, Rt Hon. Stephen Dorrell, Salma Yasmeen, Siobhan Melia*

Health and public services: Addressing the real determinants of health

The plan’s emphasis on the wider determinants of health – such as housing, employment and social connection – was welcomed by speakers, particularly with reference to mental health. One speaker celebrated that “this is the first time in many years that we’re dealing with the root causes of mental health,” but cautioned that protecting universal access to mental healthcare must be a priority amid continuing cuts to mental health services.

There was also recognition that more locally responsive models of care are needed, with community-level co-design and diverse participation at their core. “Equity doesn’t happen by chance,” said one speaker: “we need to build it in from the start.” This is particularly relevant when considering rural and urban populations, where the needs of communities and accessibility of health and care services can vary substantially. For example, some rural areas have found success in building Integrated Neighbourhood Teams (INTs) using existing primary care network boundaries, whereas an urban area might benefit from the co-location of GP and community nurses, social workers or pharmacists in a community health hub.

Whatever foundation is used to deliver neighbourhood care, however, speakers argued for the close participation of VCSE partners in core service design and delivery, to ensure that services are reflective of local need and to avoid the creation of “mini institutions” within neighbourhoods.

However, realising the vision of community-centred care will be next to impossible if current multimorbidity trends continue; this means substantial investment into neighbourhoods, communities, employment and housing.

Equipping and supporting the workforce

Speakers noted that the Plan’s emphasis on community and neighbourhood-based care has major implications for workforce readiness; the left shift cannot happen without reshaping training and education of healthcare professionals, nor without truly supporting new models of practice.

Those expected to deliver care in new or unfamiliar environments must be trained to do so. Speakers emphasised that outside of ‘box-ticking exercises’ on undergraduate courses, for instance, healthcare professionals receive little training for delivering care within patients’ homes.

“We need proper treatment programmes in real-world settings, but our current training doesn’t prepare people for that.”

Beyond clinical skills, workforce development also requires addressing the emotional burden faced by staff, particularly in the context of public criticism of NHS staff and professional shortages. “The resident doctors’ industrial action is a symptom of a demoralised workforce,” explained one speaker. Another added that we cannot continue routinely blaming midwives and doctors for systemic failures evident across maternity care, particularly given their shortage across the NHS, and called on the CQC to take a more constructive approach to assessment and regulation of services.

Data, digital and system learning

Concerns were raised regarding the readiness of the NHS workforce to deliver the data-led, digital-first NHS that the 10-Year Plan envisages. Attendees confronted the “assumption that AI will solve all of our problems and reduce the need for analysts,” expressing instead that AI should be viewed as a tool to be used by analysts.

Speakers also noted that while the Plan features a heavy emphasis on technology as a means of alleviating pressure on the health system, there is a significant gap in both infrastructure and capability across the NHS. Digital maturity varies substantially from one system to another, with some providers conducting robotics-assisted surgeries while others still lack access to interoperable patient records.

Investment in digital capability was seen as critical, but several cautioned that funding must also focus on the people needed to interpret and apply data, rather than solely digital infrastructure.

Low data literacy among the workforce was also identified as a particular issue, as biases or gaps within datasets can easily translate into poor service design and exacerbate access and outcome inequalities. It was argued that the government’s £10 billion investment in upgrading NHS technology and delivering a single patient record will be undermined if there is not a similar effort to upskill staff, ensuring they can handle and interpret patient data safely, accurately and with due consideration of potential biases within datasets.

Achieving a meaningful left shift depends heavily on digital maturity across both systems and the workforce. For instance, moving outpatient care out of hospital relies on seamless digital interfaces between primary, secondary and community providers. Similarly, a more connected system would allow GPs to access specialist advice more efficiently, and enable patients to view and manage their own health information.

System-wide digital maturity is essential to demonstrating the value of integrated care. With the right data infrastructure in place, it becomes possible to show how targeted investment – such as in joint models between primary, community and mental health providers – can lead to better patient outcomes, more efficient use of public funds, and a stronger return on investment for taxpayers. This kind of evidence is key to guiding where resources should be deployed in future.

Looking ahead to implementation

Though the plan marks a significant inflection point for the NHS, attendees were mindful of the implementation challenges ahead, and the mixed record of past strategies. One audience member cautioned that: “we’ve had the Five Year Forward View, the Refresh, the Long-Term Plan, the Recovery Plan… maybe a third gets implemented, maybe a third of that has any impact.”

Speakers also noted the absence of strategy for actually delivering the 10-Year Plan, as well as the challenges inherent for integrated care boards in delivering proposed changes alongside 50 per cent running cost reductions. There is also the question of social care, a plan for which is currently being shaped by Baroness Louise Casey’s independent review, and is expected to be released in 2028 at the soonest.

Nonetheless, participants expressed a shared optimism and commitment to shaping the next phase of delivery. For some, the priority is neighbourhood-based support for mental health. For others, it’s recalibrating funding to better serve integrated care.

As one speaker concluded, no single organisation can solve these challenges in isolation; humility, collaboration and local adaptation will be essential to delivering on the 10-Year Plan, and building what comes next.

Next steps

PPP will continue exploring the future of health and care transformation and the implications of the 10-Year Health Plan at our next breakfast event, Implementing the 10-Year Health Plan, on 3 September 2025. We will be joined by the Rt Hon. Alan Milburn, Lead Non-Executive Director for the Department of Health and Social Care, to examine what the 10-Year Plan means for services and local system.

To find out more and secure your place*, please visit the event page.

*Please note that places are limited.

North East initiative unlocks support for tens of thousands of “hidden” carers

By Integrated Care Journal

More than one in ten people living in the North East are known to be providing care for someone – the highest proportion in the UK.

Tens of thousands of unpaid carers living across the North East of England have unlocked crucial support over the last year, thanks to the launch of a landmark initiative. The tech-powered initiative was first rolled out across the North East in June 2024 and has already boosted support for 95,000 unpaid carers living in the region.

Delivered through a collaboration between thirteen local authorities in partnership with the carer-led community Mobilise, the initiative provides the North East’s vital caring community with access to an added layer of on-demand support, through services including an online community forum and tools to help claim financial support. This builds upon the support available through local carers organisations.

The North East has the largest proportion of unpaid carers in the UK, with more than one in ten people living in the region known to be providing care for someone – although the true figure could be far higher.

Digital services boost support for “hidden” carers

According to new research, more than a third of people looking after someone take over three years to recognise their caring roles, meaning many may not realise they are entitled to support. The North East initiative is unlocking support sooner for these ‘hidden’ carers: 4 in 5 (81 per cent) people accessing the online services had not previously engaged with any support.

The online services, which can be accessed 24/7 as well as remotely, are also empowering local carers to access ‘out of hours’ support. More than half (58 per cent) of those who have found support through the initiative are relying on the services outside of working hours.

Steph Downey, Strategic Director for Integrated Adults and Social Care Services (DASS) at Gateshead Council, said of the initiative: “We are so proud of the impact this initiative is having for unpaid carers within our community. Reaching and supporting those with caring responsibilities is a vital priority – and we’re especially keen to reach more ‘hidden’ carers who may not have accessed support before. This partnership is helping us to identify these people sooner and provide on-demand support to anyone who is caring in the region.”

The impact of the North East initiative highlights the need for increased awareness of different caring roles, and the role which round-the-clock support can play in widening access to support. For example, those who juggle caring with paid jobs or care full-time may be restricted around the times that they can access support.

Peter from Redcar and Cleveland who cares for his wife, said: “I’ve been married to my wife for 42 years, and cared for her for the past 11 plus years. I’ve juggled my caring role with full time work for the majority of this time. Currently, I spend all the hours of the day that I can visiting my wife whilst she’s in hospital. This means that dinner time is the only real chance I get to focus on myself and reflect. Being a carer isn’t easy, and it can be during these quieter moments that I’ve found myself struggling in the past and looking for support. This is when having a support network available 24/7 can make all the difference. Other Mobilise users and care experts – people with first-hand experience of what I’m going through – are always there to reply, relate, and urge me on.”

Suzanne Bourne, Head of Carer Support at Mobilise, added: “Not everyone identifies as a carer. But everyone who looks after someone should be aware of their entitlement to support, and be able to access services that fit around their schedules and needs. It’s so encouraging to see the impact that our online community is having across the North East, especially for those who are accessing support for the first time. It’s a privilege to be working with the Local Authorities, Carers Centres’ and caring organisations across the region to help more carers feel seen and supported.”

The digital services are available across all of the following North East regions: South Tyneside, Northumberland, County Durham, Cumberland, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar and Cleveland, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Hartlepool, North Tyneside, Gateshead, and Darlington.

To access the support, see here. For more information about the Mobilise community, see here.