Health secretary Wes Streeting yesterday (July 14) revealed that the multiple could work with neighbourhood health centres across England to assist with delivering the shift in care from hospitals to the community.
Faced with questions from the Health and Social Care Committee (HSCC) in the House of Commons, Streeting suggested that businesses “like Boots and Specsavers” will work with neighbourhood health centres to help “deliver a greater range of services”.
Responding to a question from Labour MP for Chelsea and Fulham Ben Coleman, the health secretary explained that “mainly NHS organisations” will lead the hubs, with the support of other service providers such as Boots.
Read more: All the headlines from the government’s NHS 10-year plan
“You could imagine [for] some of the things that we want to achieve they’ll be working with people like Boots and Specsavers that deliver a greater range of services as well,” he said.
“The community – neighbourhood health – is where it’s at, it’s where the most exciting medicine will be practised,” he added.
“It’s where you can make the most difference to patients in tackling health inequalities...so I hope that we’ll see a good deal of enthusiasm for working in general practice or in community,” he said.
“A bit of flak”
Streeting also stressed that “the worst thing” the government can do on NHS reform is “to take the plan and the end state [it’s] aiming towards and try to impose it all in one go”.
Previous reforms have shown that “a big top-down reorganisation imposed on the system doesn’t work”, he said.
And while the government has “taken a bit of flak” for launching a country-wide consultation on the plan, that is “a far better approach than [past] alternatives”, he added.
Read more: DH to launch pharmacist-staffed ‘neighbourhood health services’
It comes as the Department of Health and Social Care (DH) revealed plans earlier this month to “bring the NHS closer to home” by launching “neighbourhood health services” across the country.
The centres will be staffed by “pioneering teams” including pharmacists, nurses, doctors, dental staff, social care workers, health visitors, palliative care staff and paramedics, as well as community health workers and volunteers, it said at the time.
The first 42 of these new neighbourhood hubs are set to be rolled out from September, with each region to be covered by the programme and “working-class areas” prioritised.
Read more: DH to roll out 42 neighbourhood health hubs from September
Meanwhile, Tony Blair Institute senior policy advisor Adam Bradshaw last week said that the NHS 10-year plan “seems to set out really nice ambitions in some places, but there doesn’t seem to be a plan to actually deliver on this”.
“There is a really large delta between these ambitions and the reality that is on the ground at the moment,” he said, adding that “the government really needs a clear plan to deliver on this at the pace and scale required”.
