NHS 10-Year Plan – what it means for the VCSE

Rapid review by Natalie Webb, Chair of HIVCA (Hampshire and Isle of Wight Health and Care Voluntary and Community Sector Alliance) with a local VCSE lens. July 2025

The NHS 10-Year Plan sets out big ambitions for the future of health and care. With a strong focus on prevention, community care, and digital transformation, there are clear opportunities for the VCSE. Natalie, HIVCA Chair, has read the plan and here are some headlines we think you’ll want to know together with key messages we’ve shared with the ICB.

Rebuilding Trust – The VCSE Opportunity

The plan recognises that the relationship between the public and the NHS is damaged. The VCSE can support a rebuild of the health system based on trust, transparency and closer to community, all things the VCSE is good at and locally has track record for.

A Shift to Community and Place

The plan is for a more devolved health service, integrated in community and place, it is not clear how the NHS wants to work with the VCSE to deliver this, but VCSE is an essential partner to achieving this and many other goals within it. HIOW VCSE organisations are very interested in the place-based approach and will want to understand how this will connect with strategic and delivery place-based VCSE organisations, including Local Infrastructure Organisations.

Changing Role of ICBs

ICBs are to become ‘strategic commissioners’ which confirms much of what we already knew with ICB reduction plans (HIOW has a 48% reduction plan). This is an ongoing discussion between HIOW ICB and the VCSE. Understanding opportunities and risks presented by the shift is essential.

Missing Voice of the VCSE

The 10-year plan overall talks about VCSE delivery and co-delivery but lacks strong reference to VCSE as a strategic partner. We need to cement both locally. We know the ICB Board itself will be changing shape, and HIVCA will continue to advocate for a role within that.

The plan outlines in detail three major shifts:

1. Hospital to community – the headlines
   • The plan describes NHS as ‘fragmented silos’ with neighbourhood health as an alternative.
   • The plan calls for Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs) to act as ‘one stop shops’ and says there will be a NHC in every community – so a strong place-based approach.
   • The plan talks about convening neighbourhood teams which include staff from ‘other sectors’.
   • The plan also outlines increased GP and dentistry capacity.
   • The plan says, “we will also improve pay, terms and conditions for social care staff through Fair Pay Agreements”.
   • The plans says that there will be a new central platform for NHS volunteers to be launched this year.
   • There is a refreshed focus on personal health budgets.

Hospital to community – the opportunity

• The VCSE should be an integrated part of NHCs, helping to get to root causes of health and social care issues and supporting with elements such as social prescribing and advice.
• The VCSE may be a key provider of health and social care services, often already situated close to the community geographically and topically.
• The VCSE will want to understand how they will play a role in neighbourhood teams, and whether Fair Pay Agreements will impact providers, contracts or the wider workforce.

2. Analogue to digital – the headlines
   • The plan includes many tech advances, including giving people control of their data and management of their own access, and also giving digital opportunities to share feedback.
   • Significant tech element to the workforce development part of the plan, for instance supporting staff to use AI more.
   • ‘My Care’ will be a patient’s new online ‘one stop shop’ platform for managing their care. Over time this will link to services outside the NHS, including the VCSE, and it is planned to be a digital social prescriber.

Analogue to digital – the opportunity

• The VCSE will want to consider how it tracks tech development and doesn’t fall behind. There’s generally less investment, funding and capacity for tech development in the VCSE, so it will be important to consider what this means in practice.
• The VCSE works well with communities to improve digital literacy and support digital engagement and could mobilise/reignite this work.

3. Sickness to prevention – a focus ‘upstream of ill health’ – the headlines
   • Tightening the rules on tobacco sales and advertising of vapes.
   • Focus on obesity, including in children.
   • Expanding free school meals and improving food standards in schools.
   • Encouraging physical activity and healthy choices.
   • Promoting work.
   • Expanding mental health teams in schools and providing additional support for children and young people’s mental health through young futures hubs.
   • Focus on HPV vaccinations to eliminate cervical cancer.
   • Screening for lung cancer.
   • Genomic testing.

Sickness to Prevention – a focus on ‘upstream of ill health’ – the opportunity

• The plan says the NHS will continue to work with the VCSE to support public trust in vaccines and childhood immunisation rates. The VCSE will want to understand its role here, and what is required.
• The VCSE is often best placed to lead on prevention and early intervention and so will be interested in how this will connect with existing provision and potential innovation.
• The VCSE delivers many intervention programmes and projects supporting physical activity, employability, and supporting particular health concerns including mental health and cancer: associated VCSE providers will be poised to support the prevention agenda.

Financial Sustainability – For Everyone

The plan talks about the NHS having financial discipline and efficiency for itself, breaking short term financial planning and seeking financial sustainability. The NHS should seek this too for the VCSE through long-term contracts and sustainable, efficient commissioning.

Health Inequalities

There is a theme for NHS and Trusts to focus on population health and inequalities. The plan calls for more even and equitable provision which does not lead to poor health for poor people or those otherwise disadvantaged e.g. through disability. The VCSE can be a voice for communities that are less well served, it will be interesting to see how the connection is made between health and those under engaged in the current system.

The future of Healthwatch

The plan confirms recent media announcements that Healthwatch will become a function of Local Authority social care. The VCSE will have important views on the impact of this on the independence of feedback and patient voice.

Connecting health and Local Authority structures and devolution

The plan talks about connecting the new NHS to mayors and new local authority structures. The VCSE will want to connect with devolution and understand what this means in practice in HIOW.

A new era for partnerships

The plan says that Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) is being abolished. In HIOW the VCSE will need to understand what this means locally. The ICP is currently where the VCSE voice is placed strategically, which emphasises the need for the conversation (already ongoing) about where the VCSE is situated in the formal system governance structures. Also, the VCSE will be interested in what will happen with ICP joint assemblies, where the VCSE have engaged locally on topic-based matters and where community engagement for the ICB has been situated.

What’s Next?

The direction is clear: more local, more digital, more prevention. But the VCSE needs to be invited in, not left out. We’ll continue to engage with partners across the system to push for genuine partnership and clarity on how this plan plays out locally.

If you have questions, concerns or insights to share, please get in touch via joy.martin@actionhampshire.org Your voice matters, and together we can shape the next chapter.