How Community Resource is Delivering the NHS’s 10 Year Vision in Shropshire
The NHS 10-Year Health Plan for England sets out radical reform centred on three fundamental shifts from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. These transformational changes create significant opportunities for our services, particularly in community-based advocacy and engagement, as the healthcare system moves toward more localised, person-centred care. We are optimistic about this direction and encouraged by the recognition that sustainable healthcare improvement requires the kind of comprehensive community approach we have been championing for years.
Our broader focus on improving lives across the community through wellbeing, inclusion, independence, and connection positions us well to strengthen existing work and complement the Plan’s reforms. The Plan reinforces many principles embedded in our current 5-year strategy around demonstrating difference, collaborating for change, and investing for impact.
The Plan’s emphasis on neighbourhood health centres and home-based treatment builds directly on our already operational rural outreach, ageing well, and social prescribing programmes. However, the reliance on the NHS App as a digital front door risks excluding older, rural, and digitally excluded people – precisely where our services are most vital.
The Plan’s prevention ambitions to halve inequality in healthy life expectancy underscores the value of our established programmes around loneliness, rural access and mental wellbeing. These services, which have always been central to our charitable mission, are now officially viewed as essential healthcare interventions that contribute measurably to national health objectives.
The proposed elimination of statutory Healthwatch functions creates both risk and opportunity. While new digital feedback tools may streamline processes, they risk losing local independence and community insight. This creates a vacuum for trusted community-led advocacy that we are uniquely positioned to fill.
Implications from the NHS 10-Year Health Plan and the adjoining Review of Patient Safety Across the Health and Care Landscape (the DASH Review) indicate the Government’s intention to abolish Healthwatch England, local Healthwatch bodies and other quality measure services.
As a delivery agent of your local Healthwatch Shropshire service and an Independent Health Complaints Advocacy Service (IHCAS provider), we remain committed to providing these vital services and will work through the implications to ensure the best outcomes for our community. We are actively working with Shropshire Council (who commission the service) and local health partners to understand the full implications of these proposals. We understand this may raise questions about their future and ability to continue advocating for you. Be assured our Healthwatch service continues as usual.
While new digital feedback tools may streamline processes, they risk losing local independence and community insight that has been central to effective advocacy. This creates space for trusted community-led advocacy that we are uniquely positioned to fill through our established relationships and deep community knowledge.
The NHS 10-Year Plan’s endorsement of community-first approaches presents an unprecedented opportunity to expand Community Resources’ mission through strategic partnerships. We invite local stakeholders including NHS trusts, local authorities, community groups, and healthcare providers to work with us on this community-first healthcare transformation.
We offer proven community-first delivery that is now officially viewed as essential for healthcare success, established community relationships and trust that the Plan identifies as crucial infrastructure. Operational programmes that directly deliver on nationally endorsed objectives, and community intelligence and advocacy capabilities.
We call on the local healthcare community and our existing partners to collaborate with Community Resource in the continuation of designing, implementing and championing community-based healthcare solutions. Leveraging our proven programmes and our established community relationships to accelerate delivery of prevention and community care objectives.
The NHS 10-Year Plan has confirmed that Community Resource’s mission and approach are fundamental to healthcare transformation. This validation creates unprecedented opportunities to expand our impact and continue to lead as a community-first care organisation.
Contact Community Resource today to discuss how we can work together to build on our proven community-first mission.
