The Oxfordshire Health & Wellbeing Board met to discuss the development of neighbourhood health services in Oxfordshire, in line with the government's 10 year health plan. Councillor Liz Leffman, Leader of the Council, chaired the meeting, with Professor Sir Jonathan Montgomery, Chair of Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, as vice chair. The board was asked to note the early plans and timetable of delivery for Neighbourhood Health services in Oxfordshire.

Development of Neighbourhood Health in Oxfordshire

The Oxfordshire Health & Wellbeing Board was scheduled to discuss the development of neighbourhood health services in Oxfordshire.

According to the report pack, in line with the government's 10 year health plan, which includes a priority for moving care from hospital to community, local areas are required to develop Neighbourhood Health services. The Health And Wellbeing Board will have leadership for local Neighbourhood Health plans jointly drawn up by local government, the NHS and its partners.

The board was provided with several documents to support their discussions, including:

• The Executive Summary of the government's Fit for the Future - 10 Year Health Plan for England. According to the summary, the plan aims to create a new model of care, and will be central to how the government delivers on its health mission. The plan states that it will take the NHS' founding principles - universal care, free at the point of delivery, based on need and funded through general taxation - and from those foundations, entirely reimagine how the NHS does care so patients have real choice and control over their health and care. The plan describes three radical shifts: from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention.
• NHS England - Neighbourhood Health Guidelines 2025-26. According to the guidelines, there is an urgent need to transform the health and care system, and to move to a neighbourhood health service that will deliver more care at home or closer to home, improve people's access, experience and outcomes, and ensure the sustainability of health and social care delivery. The guidelines state that neighbourhood health reinforces a new way of working for the NHS, local government, social care and their partners, where integrated working is the norm and not the exception.
• A presentation on the Development of Neighbourhood Health in Oxfordshire.

The NHS England - Neighbourhood Health Guidelines 2025-26 document includes a diagram showing the aims for all neighbourhoods over the next 5 to 10 years. These aims are:

• NHS and social care working together to prevent people spending unnecessary time in hospital or care homes.
• Strengthening primary and community based care to enable more people to be supported closer to home or work.
• Connecting people accessing health and care to wider public services and third sector support, including social care, public health and other local government services.

The document states that NHS England regional teams, working with local government partners and informed by the evidence generated from existing work in systems, should work with systems to agree locally what specific impacts they will seek to achieve during 2025/26. It is expected that these will include, as a minimum, improving timely access to general practice and urgent and emergency care, preventing long and costly admissions to hospital and preventing avoidable long-term admissions to residential or nursing care homes.

The document also summarises requirements for 2025/26, stating that systems should work with partner organisations to:

• Apply a consistent, system-wide population health management approach which draws on quantitative data and qualitative insights to understand needs and risks for different population cohorts.
• Use this information to design and deliver the most appropriate care for each population cohort and to inform best-value commissioning decisions that empower frontline staff to provide more person-centred care, enabling people to live independently for longer.
• Continue to embed, standardise and scale the 6 initial core components of a neighbourhood health service and ensure capacity and structures across providers are aligned to best meet demand.

The document identifies six core components associated with an effective neighbourhood service:

• Population health management
• Modern general practice
• Standardising community health services
• Neighbourhood multidisciplinary teams (MDTs)
• Integrated intermediate care with a 'Home First' approach
• Urgent neighbourhood services

The document also includes several case studies of existing good practice that forms the foundations of neighbourhood health. These include:

• Linking data and embedding a single systemwide population health management approach
• Addressing health inequalities faced by people with severe mental illness through mental health practitioners in primary care teams
• Improving access and workforce wellbeing through a modern general practice model
• Transforming care through modern general practice and population segmentation
• Standardising community health services to address variation and improve outcomes
• Strong working relationships as the bedrock of neighbourhood multidisciplinary teams (children and young people focused)
• Working with communities to mobilise change through neighbourhood multidisciplinary teams (frailty focused)
• Provision of person-centred holistic care delivered by neighbourhood multidisciplinary teams (high intensity use focused)
• Women's health hubs providing integrated care at neighbourhood level
• Strong relationships between system partners and multi professional teams (palliative care and end-of-life care focused)
• Supporting effective collaboration for 'Home First' rehabilitation, reablement and recovery services through a system-wide reporting suite and common analytics dashboard
• Clear lines of accountability and clinical governance structures to deliver effective urgent neighbourhood services