Person Centred Care is central to the NHS’s ambitions for a Neighbourhood model.

Person Centred Care is central to the NHS’s ambitions for a Neighbourhood model.

-Dr Ollie Hart

We’ve recently seen the NHS release it’s 25/26 guidance on Neighbourhood working. Building on Claire Fullers Primary Care Stocktake, this is clearly still the main direction of travel in primary care as Wes Streeting aims to shift from hospital to community, and reactive to proactive care.

Firstly the documents was refreshingly short! Not the usual 50 pages of ‘technospeak’, but focused and specific. Just 18 pages, almost readable, thankyou! But also, reassuringly it was full of references to person centred (personalised) approaches.

It recognises that the proportion of people’s lives living in ill health is increasing, and with it, complexity. It highlights that 20% of GP work is related to non-medical consultations, and it outlines the need to work as a joined-up health and social system, within local communities.

In this context, there is a drive to focus in on the 2-4% of people with most complex needs, often a mix of health and social, involving multiple long-term conditions, frailty, end of life care and high A+E use. Within this group the there is a stated aim of:

“improving people’s experience of care, including through increased agency to manage and improve their own health and wellbeing”

There is a strong theme around co-ordination and continuity of care, encouraging the new care-coordinator role as the advocate and go between of a wider multiprofessional team, and working across organisational boundaries.

We have seen the embedding of new additional primary care roles in the last 5 years – Care Co-ordinators, Social Prescribing Link Workers and Health and Wellbeing Coaches. Close to 10,000 new staff in these roles now. Within this document we hear a renewed commitment to the wider scope and capacity that these roles bring, as we seek to enact a neighbourhood Multi Professional Team that covers medical and non-medical factors. They offer skills and support to enhance medical, social and self-care support.

And, of course, very relevant to Peak Health Coaching, we read in paragraph 14 the need for ’training and workforce development to enable collaborative working ‘