The new NHS 10 Year Plan has now been released. It’s a weighty document (some 168 pages) but it sets a direction for the NHS around three themes:

Hospital to Community: Community initiatives to prevent unwanted hospital admissions.

Sickness to Prevention: Preventing people from being sick in the first place through better and more effective preventative measures.

Analogue to Digital: Harnessing the power of digital to better inform and direct potential patients.

A synopsis of the plan can be viewed here: NHS 10 Year Plan

The plan also discusses the closure of Healthwatch England and possibly 150 local Healthwatch branches, many of whom are delivered through the VCSE within the UK.

SAWN states:

The infrastructure partnership SAWN (consisting of Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire, Daventry Volunteers and South Northants Volunteer Bureau) believe that the VCSE is best placed to assist in the NHS with their three headline themes. The VCSE works across all these preventative areas and should not be ignored in finding much needed solutions to the current issues the NHS is facing. The key for our ICB is effective Co-Production and intuitive commissioning.