Fit For The Future. The 10-Year Health Plan for England

Healthwatch Reading
Sep 15, 2025
3 min read

The government has now published its 10-Year Health Plan for England setting out a long -term vision for transformation of health and social care.

The plan outlines three radical shifts:

Hospital to community
Analogue to digital
Sickness to prevention

Over 250,000 people shared their views through the Change NHS website and have shaped the plan. This includes ideas from Healthwatch, NHS staff and the public. Many of the ideas reflect things Healthwatch Reading and Healthwatch England have championed for years, including:

Better access to GPs and NHS Dentists
Greater use of community pharmacies
Improved NHS App
A simpler complaints system
Personalised mental health emergency care

If done well, these changes will make a real difference to people's everyday care, making it easier to navigate services, manage appointments and access information.

More about the changes

Hospital to community

The plan sets out to bring care into local communities, link community and health services together.

Neighbourhood Health Centres will be established to act as a 'one stop shop' for patient care in the community. Open 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, the centres will bring together NHS, local authority and voluntary sector services .

GP, nursing, dental, rehabilitation, diagnostics, mental health services will be available alongside other services such as help to stop smoking, weight management, debt advice and employment support.

Analogue to digital

Transformation of the NHS App into a "full front door" to the entire NHS allowing online bookings, access to full medical record, Artificial Intelligence based triage to assess and prioritise patients, medicine management and patient feedback. The aim is to give patients greater control over their health and care, with the tools and information to manage their own health appropriately.

Although the plan states that inclusion would be designed into the NHS App it does not outline what this involves. Healthwatch Reading has concerns about relying too much on digital services and what this will mean for patients who have no access to a smart phone, internet and/or struggle with digital skills.

In our GP access report we found that many people found it difficult to use the NHS App, particularly older adults, people with disabilities and those who lack strong digital skills. Some respondents found the technology confusing, complicated and it lead to barriers accessing care and services.

Sickness to prevention

The third big change is about preventing illness, not just treating it.

Early intervention: focus on genomics screening - a medical test that looks at how all of your genes interact, preventive services and lifestyle support.

Risks will be identified earlier thanks to a new programme that uses genetic data to estimate the likelihood of developing certain diseases. Doctors can catch problems sooner or prevent them from happening.

Healthy choice the easy choice - focus will shift on encouraging exercises, weight management, smoking cessation, tackling alcohol misuse and air quality improvement. Incentive schemes will be introduced for healthy eating and movement, expanding free school meals for families in receipt of Universal Credit and regulating food advertising.

The plan also has important changes that focus on children’s health, including better access to dental care and mental health support.

What will happen to patient feedback

The plan includes major changes to how patient feedback is heard. It proposes:

Abolishing Healthwatch England, the national body that supports local Healthwatch teams and ending all 153 local Healthwatch, including Healthwatch Reading.
Absorbing local Healthwatch work into NHS Integrated Care Boards and NHS "provider engagement” teams.
Passing Healthwatch’s social care functions to local councils.
Appointing a new National Director of Patient Experience, combining parts of Healthwatch and the Patient Safety Commissioner.
Replacing community feedback with digital input via the NHS App, with systems expected to be in place by 2026.

What next for Healthwatch Reading?

Reading Healthwatch and national Healthwatch would no longer exist in their current form. However, nothing has officially changed. We continue to operate as usual until the law changes.

We’re still here, we are still listening

We will continue:

Listening to you experiences of health and social care.
Share your feedback with those in power to improve services.
Provide advice and information to help you find the right health and social care.

Click here to sign a petition for the Government to review its decision to abolish your local Healthwatch.