Live reaction to the Government's 10-year health plan

The Government’s long-awaited 10-year health plan was published today. We will be featuring all the reaction to this news from the BMA to grassroots GPs. This will be constantly updated. If you would like to send in your reaction, email [email protected]

Dr Rob Hendry, medical director and chief member officer at Medical Protection Society

In relation to the plan to roll out Staff Treatment Hubs, a high-quality occupational health service for all NHS staff that includes support for back conditions and mental health issues:

‘There is much to welcome in this plan, but a key workforce challenge not sufficiently addressed is how to support the many skilled healthcare workers who have a long career ahead of them, but are burnt out or struggling with their mental wellbeing. This is not only damaging for them but can also jeopardise patient care. Many are also on the verge of quitting.

‘While the plan commits to an occupational health service that would include support with mental health issues, we are concerned that this may not be the specialist, confidential support healthcare staff really need. NHS England initiated a review well over a year ago to assess the provision of mental wellbeing support for NHS staff which is not mentioned. Sustained investment in comprehensive mental wellbeing support can play a critical role in retaining the medical workforce. It requires greater attention, and long-term thinking.’

In relation to the news that the Government asked David Lock KC to provide expert advice on the rising legal costs of clinical negligence claims, ahead of a review by the DHSC in the autumn:

‘The ambition in this plan is positive, however it comes with a price tag. While it is disappointing that the Government has not set out, as part of the plan, how it will tackle the spiralling cost of NHS clinical negligence claims, we welcome the news David Lock KC will provide expert advice on this issue ahead of a Government review in the autumn. Last year alone, the government paid out £2.8 billion on claims, and an estimated £58.2 billion is needed for future clinical negligence costs – a sum recently identified as being the government’s second largest liability after nuclear decommissioning.

‘At a time when NHS finances are in such a parlous state, and there much to be done to transform patient care and services, sums like these are unsustainable. A comprehensive, long-overdue strategy – which balances fair compensation for patients and affordability for the NHS – is urgently needed.’

On the ambition to make the NHS the most AI‑enabled health system in the world:

‘We welcome the Government’s drive to ensure AI brings about a more efficient and responsive healthcare system. With the potential for AI to be deployed in multiple ways, we are at a turning point, and it is an exciting time to be part of the medical profession.

‘To unlock the potential benefits of AI technologies to patients however, more could be done to generate confidence in AI tools among the clinicians using them, so they are reassured that they are usable, useful, and safe both for themselves and their patients. At MPS, we will continue do everything we can to ensure that message is heard by the government, AI developers and regulators, and we will also continue provide advice which helps clinicians understand.’

Dr Sam Roberts, chief executive of NICE:

‘I am delighted to welcome the publication of the NHS 10 Year plan today which marks a major moment for the healthcare system and is a clear endorsement of NICE’s role in delivering faster, and fairer access to the best innovations.

‘The plan gives NICE the power to get medicines to patients faster, reduces the postcode lottery for high impact health technology, and maximises the value for money of existing innovations used in the NHS.

‘After years of unprecedented pressure on the health service, the plan charts a clear path from reactive care to prevention, from hospital to community, and from underused innovation to value-driven adoption.

‘At NICE, we’re ready to deliver – with a broader remit, clearer funding routes, and greater alignment with partners across the system. I’m particularly encouraged by how the plan strengthens NICE’s role in helping patients access the best care faster, while ensuring value for the taxpayer.

‘In particular, we welcome these three key areas:

1. Reducing the postcode lottery for high impact health technology

‘We welcome the plan’s commitment to treat some high impact digital tools, diagnostics, and medical devices on a level funding with medicines. This will accelerate the rollout of proven innovations – from AI-driven triage tools to digital behaviour therapies for young people.

‘The initial focus will be on technologies that meet the NHS’s most pressing needs, such as digital mental health therapies for those on long waiting lists. We expect the changes will be in place by April 2026.

2. Faster patient access to medicines

‘We will work more closely with the MHRA to speed up evaluations and ensure patients get safe, effective treatments 3-6 months sooner. Through new enhanced collaboration we will streamline and simplify the approval journey through joint scientific advice and closely aligned timelines between teams across both organisations. This will help increase coordination and reduce duplication, ensuring MHRA and NICE decisions happen as close together as possible.

3. Maximising the value of treatments already available

‘The plan strengthens NICE’s role in driving better value by continually re-evaluating clinical pathways. This will mean:

Expanded access to cost-effective innovations through new recommendations to extend access to effective treatments beyond their initial indications.
Clearer decision pathways for innovations: providing advice for clinicians on which treatments to try first when there are many choices for the same condition.  
Phasing out less effective innovations: making financial headroom for tomorrow’s breakthroughs by helping today’s NHS to identify innovations that no longer represent good value or best care.

‘This new evaluation process will also support plans for a ‘single national formulary’ that will replace local lists for medicines. This will help address postcode lotteries and ensure all patients benefit from the most effective interventions, regardless of where they live.’

Dr Jennifer Dixon DBE, chief executive of the Health Foundation:

‘The 10-year health plan sets out the government’s positive ambition to make the NHS sustainable for future generations. We welcome many of the changes in the plan – more integrated services, boosting primary and community care, harnessing innovation and technology, reducing health inequalities – but these are not new ideas and questions remain about how will be implemented and whether they will be backed by sufficient resources.

‘On the face of it, proposals to develop more integrated neighbourhood health services look similar to a long line of NHS policy initiatives, and it’s unclear whether past lessons have been learned to enable the latest versions to succeed. Plans to abolish or merge a swathe of NHS bodies and change the roles of many others might promise a less fragmented structure, but the NHS risks getting lost in organisational change when it should be focused on improving patient care.

‘Without investment and reform of the threadbare social care system, or co-ordinated action to address the wider social and economic causes of ill health, the plan remains largely a vision for the NHS, rather than a plan for rebuilding the nation’s health. The government’s health mission – which promised just such an approach – is currently missing in action and is in urgent need of resuscitation.

‘Technology brings hope for the future – and the plan places big bets on new innovation and an expanded role for the NHS App in delivering the government’s shift from analogue to digital. Used effectively, the App has the potential to empower patients and support them to better manage their health, make processes more convenient, and improve efficiency. But it is just one part of more complex changes in services and behaviours needed to bring the NHS into the 21st century – changes that fundamentally depend on the hard work and dedication of NHS staff, working with patients and the public.

‘Standing back, making the plan happen with the resources on offer will be tough. Health spending will grow by 2.8% a year in real-terms between 2025/26 and 2028/29 – lower than the historic average (3.7%) and much lower than Labour’s last period in government (6.8%). Capital investment – in buildings, equipment, and IT; the stuff NHS staff need to work effectively and improve services – will grow by just 1% a year.

‘The NHS is not broken but it is in a critical condition, so we welcome the scale of the government’s ambition. We now await the concrete action needed to turn rhetoric to reality.’

Clive Makombera, partner and head of NHS at RSM UK:

‘The plan represents a pivotal moment for the future of the NHS. The rollout of new Neighbourhood Health Centres, a much greater role for the NHS app and a fundamental shift of care from hospital to community, will create an NHS that has a more people-first approach. By embedding digital innovation, shifting care closer to home, and focusing on prevention, the NHS is laying the foundation for a more sustainable, equitable, and patient-centred future. Whilst these are the right priorities, delivering them will come with their challenges, even with the new funding that was recently announced. The government should be cautious not to overcommit to additional service priorities to those already set out, as they could end up shooting themselves in the foot.

‘A more digitally enabled NHS can only be a positive, but the initial focus will need to be on getting the basics right, then building capabilities for embedding future innovation. The NHS app will be a powerful central hub for providing efficient healthcare, but enhanced cybersecurity and data governance will be crucial to maintaining public trust. We believe a significant proportion of funding for digital transformation should be ringfenced towards building staff and system capabilities. Additional protected long-term funding should also be allocated to maintaining and modernising legacy systems and hardware.

‘Importantly, the decision to phase out the £2.2bn in deficit support funding for trusts that fail to meet their agreed targets is a bold step in holding individual trusts accountable. But simply stripping out this funding which some heavily rely on could be detrimental to achieving the goal of shifting to community care.

‘Shifting from reactive treatment to prevention will only be achievable by making better use of technology, delivering care closer to home and developing new models that center around accountability. However, the NHS desperately needs more staff with the right skills set, which might require leveraging the expertise of the private healthcare sector. That said, existing workforce shortages in the healthcare system cannot be underestimated.

‘To deliver on the government’s three key strategies, people, resources and funding in the NHS must be rebalanced to match its priorities. It will also require significantly better collaboration between the public and private sector, as they work towards common goals. In addition, longer-term funding growth in the community and preventative services must increase at a faster rate. By allocating funding at the local level more flexibly and giving trusts discretion to develop solutions on a local level, this should result in better patient outcomes and support efforts in relieving pressure on the NHS.’

Professor Kamila Hawthorne, chair of the Royal College of GPs

‘GPs are always open to exploring – and are often early adopters of – new technologies that can improve the experience of patients, and help the service to run more efficiently.

‘Many patients, GPs and other colleagues across the NHS will have experienced frustration when key information about a patient’s health cannot be shared easily across different sectors of the health service. The College has long called for greater interoperability of patient records, and this will be crucial to the delivery of the three key shifts in the 10-Year Health Plan. It’s positive to see a focus on this as part of today’s announcement but it will need to be delivered in a practical and achievable way that protects confidentiality and ensures data security.

‘The NHS App has a lot of potential for improving the way patients engage with both their health and the health service, and the idea of giving people choice about how they access their care could work well if implemented correctly. Integrated AI within the NHS App could be a useful tool in many respects – but any use of AI to aid diagnosis would have to be evidence-based and rigorously evaluated before it is rolled out for use with patients.

‘As a College we’re enthusiastic about the focus on technology outlined in today’s vision, but it can’t be escaped that current NHS IT infrastructure is in urgent need of improvement and while pledges have been made to tackle this, major AI developments still feel a long way off when many GPs are reporting that their basic IT systems are slow, inefficient and can’t communicate with one another effectively. This is why the College has called on the Government for additional ringfenced funding – of at least £2 billion – to address the substantial shortcomings in both our physical and digital infrastructure.’

Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK GP spokesperson:

‘It’s good to see that the Government is working towards bringing more care into the community and has the aim of bringing back the family doctor and ending the 8am rush.

‘The problem with the 10-year plan is that it focuses on neighbourhood health centres without acknowledging there are already more than 6,000 neighbourhood health centres in the community called GP practices.

‘Investment in GPs and GP practices would be cheaper. We have a crisis of unemployed and underemployed GPs who could step in now to provide care in the community and help solve the two aims of the Labour manifesto. Both of which we and patients agree on.

‘The danger of a top down, secondary care-led community health structure is that it will be much more costly than reinforcing the current structures.

‘There are ways to do this in line with Government priorities and Lord Darzi’s review which would solve the problems quickly and with less expensive options.

‘More care in the community, yes, but not via privately run big centres, where continuity of care, personal support and patient centred care is lost.’

Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of The King’s Fund:

‘A vision to create a neighbourhood health service is welcome, but this has long been argued for. Actually delivering this major shift of care and focus for our NHS out of hospital into communities, where previous governments have failed, would be the real win.

‘A commitment to invest more money as a proportion of health spend in the community over the next 3–4 years is to be commended. It’s this sort of concrete action that’s needed to make the shift from hospital to community a reality. We also need to see health professionals working differently, NHS estate renewed and used more imaginatively, and better links between health and social care data.

‘The ambition for all hospital trusts to become foundation trusts, with the highest performing organisations having more independence from central control and the ability to reinvest their financial surpluses is not new. The government will need to do more to explain just how greater freedoms for individual organisations are meant to square with an overall ambition for different parts of the NHS to collaborate and share resources to benefit their local populations.’

Dr Katie Bramall, BMA GP committee chair:

‘Whilst the Government’s acknowledgment of the need to focus on resourcing primary and community care is welcome, we need to see the detailed plans regarding how this will be delivered with costed investment.

‘We are committed to working with the Government in delivering a new contract for GPs, but we now need to scrutinise the detail within the Plan regarding emerging neighbourhood structures which remain untested.

‘For patients to feel that this Government has delivered on its manifesto pledge to “Bring back the family doctor” we will need to see the financial detail following on from the Spending Review. Without a commitment to a guaranteed level of investment that protects and builds neighbourhood services embedded in general practice, there risks a serious mismatch between ambition and capacity. We have a burgeoning crisis of unemployed GPs today, so we need rapid solutions to hire those fully trained doctors looking for work now, ahead of expanding numbers tomorrow, lest there be no jobs to go to as practices lack funds to hire them.

‘The creation of neighbourhood health centres must not divert staff or resources from local GP practices and must not come at the cost of ignoring dilapidated general practice estates that are being left to wither. GPs lie at the very heart of our neighbourhoods and communities so if wholescale NHS reform is to work; we need effective engagement of local GP leadership from the ground up.

‘Expanding geographical reach and services will require a modern and sustainable GP contract for decades to come; to help facilitate and expand practice services and to support GPs and their teams who are best placed to conduct the NHS orchestra.

‘If the Government is genuinely committed to delivering meaningful transformation of care over the coming decade, then crucial to any effective implementation will be the need to listen and engage with GP leadership to shape and inform the direction of travel.’

Andy Pow, adviser to the Association of Independent Specialist Medical Accountants (AISMA):

‘General practice has long been a Neighbourhood Health Service, so any move to support the shift of services away from hospitals to the community is welcomed.

‘For the plan to be successful it will need to be funded adequately. Investment will be required to develop new and existing premises and to employ staff in the community. It remains unclear how this funding challenge will be met.

‘It is essential, however, that the 10 Year Plan underpins general practice so that it does not have to compete with neighbourhood services for funding.’

Re: how a Neighbourhood Health Service will interact with general practice:
‘Who will run the new contracts envisaged by the government? Who will be the employer and what will the legal structure be? These are important considerations which must be thought through carefully to avoid the pension access and taxation issues which arose when primary care networks were formed.’

Thea Stein, Nuffield Trust chief executive:

‘The government is right about the serious problems it diagnoses in the NHS, and largely right in the vision it proposes to win back public faith. But we do not agree with the prophecy of extinction, and the path to recovery remains unclear.

‘Our analysis of the British Social Attitudes survey shows people are dismayed by how hard it is to get care. Yet the public also show high and resilient levels of satisfaction with the founding principles of the NHS – free at the point of use, tax funded and available to all [1].

‘This plan contains a litany of initiatives and the belief that they will be the NHS’s saviour, with little detail on how the ailing health service is to deliver these changes. “Heal thyself” by boosting efficiency and listening to patients more seems to be the remedy for an NHS that is struggling amidst growing patient need, rising expectations and constrained finances.

‘Many plans have talked about putting patients at the heart of care, but this plan goes further, both in its tone and through tools like expanding the NHS app, which – if implemented properly – could be a real game changer. Better technology alone won’t fix systemic inequalities or the structures that have caused patients to feel powerless. But concrete measures like reviewing the unfair and inequitable way in which GP practices are funded is a huge step forward and, if backed by the money promised, will have a real impact on patient care.

‘This plan, like so many before it, assumes that technological advancement and preventing ill health will save money. Care closer to home doesn’t mean care on the cheap and technology has a long history of costing health services more, not less. What’s more, where previous plans have been backed by significant extra funds, the hope and prayer here is that the NHS can achieve this extraordinary transformation without much new money.

‘As the US president puts even more pressure on the UK government to pay more for expensive drugs, deciding what services, treatments and innovations we prioritise when money is tight is a matter of urgency. Steps to remove recommendations for drugs which offer poor value for money is a positive development, which will require bravery from government to stand behind. We agree that the answer cannot always be to spend more. But choosing not to boost funding calls for honesty about what isn’t going to be possible.

‘Ultimately, however good the NHS app gets, it will be down to NHS staff to deliver this plan. It is positive to see recognition of how overburdened and overwhelmed many of those staff currently feel. But new neighbourhood health teams still seem to rely on the NHS standby of reorganising structures, instead of trusting the health service’s workers.

‘If push comes to shove and deeper changes have to be set aside to deliver waiting times pledges, the government will find in 2029 that it still faces the problems it has diagnosed so well from the start of its time in office.’

Rebuild General Practice spokesperson:

‘The expected 10-year plan will not deliver additional funding for general practice and will restructure the heath service to sideline GPs. From what we have seen so far, the plan looks to be disastrous for general practice. The health secretary rightly wants to shift the way we provide care – from treatment to prevention and from hospital to community. The way to do this is invest in general practice, recruit and retain more GPs, and deliver the funding boost promised. As it stands, this plan is the death knell for general practice as we know it. We urgently call on the Government and Wes Streeting to listen again to the calls of grassroots GPs if they want to save the family doctor.’

Matthew Walker, joint CEO of the National Association of Primary Care (NAPC):

‘We are pleased that this plan is about making a shift that we know makes sense for communities, staff and for citizens, mobilising the collective assets of the system around the patient. NAPC is already working across the NHS to help deliver these changes and will continue to do so with energy and enthusiasm.’