The NHS is ready to transform how care is delivered, shifting from fragmented, reactive services to a joined-up, preventative neighbourhood model. While the ambition in the UK Government’s 10 Year Health Plan for England is clear, the pace of delivery is not. Without decisive action from the Government, the risk is that neighbourhood healthcare becomes a long-term aspiration rather than a near-term reality.
As outlined in Feedback Medical’s white paper Neighbourhood health now: the digital roadmap for delivering neighbourhood services today – published on 4 November 2025 – the infrastructure, partnerships, and technology needed to begin implementation already exist. What’s needed now is Government-led clarity, coordination, and investment to unlock rapid progress.
What first movers need from Government
To enable NHS organisations to lead the way in neighbourhood healthcare, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England must:
- Set a clear national mandate: Confirm neighbourhood healthcare as a top priority and define what success looks like, including the role of digital infrastructure to deliver resident-centred care and cross-provider collaboration.
- Accelerate procurement: Mandate the procurement of a single, informed resident view and real-time collaboration platform, such as Bleepa®, and either launch a national procurement program or streamline local procurement to ensure the digital underpinning for neighbourhood healthcare can be in place without delay.
- Fund implementation, not just ambition: Provide multi-year, recurrent funding to support technology deployment, workforce training, and service redesign. One-off grants or pilot funding will not deliver sustainable change.
- Mandate interoperability standards: Require all NHS-used systems to integrate with the chosen digital platform, ensuring consistency across regions and avoiding fragmentation.
- Empower local NHS providers: Give local NHS care providers the authority and resources to lead local delivery, formalise service agreements, and coordinate across NHS, local government, and voluntary sectors.
Every delay in implementation means continued inefficiencies, rising pressure on acute services, and missed opportunities to improve care for residents. The NHS cannot afford to wait for perfect conditions. It needs the tools and support to act now.
“The NHS must commit to a rapid, strategic rollout of digital infrastructure that supports joined-up care and move beyond pilot projects to unlock the benefits of collaboration, efficiency, and better patient outcomes. This will deliver for today’s residents, while building the foundations for the health and care of future generations.
“Digital platforms like Bleepa are not just future-facing – they’re ready for deployment now. Our involvement in the London neighbourhood health simulation showed that with the right digital platform, neighbourhood healthcare can be delivered now.”
CEO of Feedback Medical
“We need connected digital infrastructure, not fragmented records; connected people, not siloed working; empowered teams, not layered bureaucracy; and shared resident views that enable confident, timely action.
“This white paper sets out a practical roadmap to deliver neighbourhood health now, building on real learning, not abstract plans.
“If we align technology, workforce, and local partnerships with purpose, we can create neighbourhood health systems that work for clinicians and communities alike. Today, not a decade from now.”
Senior leadership team member at the National Association of Primary Care and GP Partner at Moatfield SurgeryConclusion: Enable the first movers
Neighbourhood healthcare is not a distant goal. It is a deliverable model that can begin today if the Government provides the clarity, funding, and infrastructure to support it. By enabling first movers, DHSC can unlock immediate improvements in care, demonstrate national leadership, and lay the foundation for long-term reform.
Read the neighbourhood health now white paper
———–
Follow Feedback Medical for more information on how to deliver neighbourhood healthcare at the upcoming NHS Providers annual conference live neighbourhood health simulation on 11-12 November 2025 in Manchester. We will be on stand 18 with Optum and providing Bleepa as the clinical collaboration tool for participants in the two-day simulation.