The NHS 10 Year Plan and its opportunities for homecare

The UK government outlined its ambitions for the next ten years of the NHS in July 2025. The NHS 10 Year Plan, titled 'Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England' sets out the government’s aspirations to reinvent the NHS in England over the next decade; to make it - and the wider healthcare system - better able to serve our society’s changing needs.

At the core of the 10 year plan are three big shifts:

• From hospital to community - more care will be available on people’s doorsteps and in their homes

• From analogue to digital - new technology will liberate staff from admin and allow people to manage their care as easily as they bank or shop online

• From sickness to prevention - healthy choices will be easier to make and care will be offered earlier to keep people well for longer

The plan comes at a crisis point for the NHS. In its Executive Summary, the choice laid out for the NHS is stark: "reform or die". Informed by the biggest conversation about the NHS in its history, the voices of thousands of staff and 250,000 ideas from the public have been heard to create a plan that will "entirely reimagine" how the NHS works, creating a new model of care to give people real choice and control over their health and care.

This has come out of a diagnosis within Lord Darzi’s independent review that the NHS is "in a ‘critical condition' as a result of deep rooted issues including low productivity, poor staff morale, a failure to keep up with new technology, rising waiting times and a deterioration in the health of the nation."

So what opportunities does the NHS 10 Year Plan offer for homecare?

Hospital to community

The switch to a preventative principle of care happening as locally as possible presents a huge opportunity for homecare providers - who are already supporting people to live as well as they can in their own homes, for as long as they can. We know that hospital is rarely the answer. We have already modelled the concept of digital-by-default, in a client’s home where possible, in the community when needed, in a hospital if necessary. There is much that NHS teams could learn from engaging with homecare providers.

The announcement of a new Neighbourhood Health Service is extremely welcome. These community-based centres made up of mixed disciplines will see teams of nurses, doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, health visitors, palliative care staff, paramedics, community health workers and volunteers all working together and accessible to the public on their doorstep. Eventually, the idea is to open 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

For the NHS, this will bring historically hospital-based services into the community - like diagnostics, post-operative care and rehab. But the centres will also offer services like debt advice, employment support, stop smoking and weight management. It’s an unprecedented opportunity for the NHS to look at the whole person - to understand the interconnected challenges that people face which impact their health. The things that care workers - who spend so much time with people over weeks, months, even years - are often the most able to observe. Care workers already document this 360 view and are able to act on it; truly person-centred care.

Analogue to digital

Homecare is already well ahead of the NHS in many respects when it comes to digitisation. In less than three years we’ve watched social care providers embrace digital transformation and go from barely a third using any kind of digital system at all, to at least 77% now using digital social care records for their clients (based on modelling from CQC Provider Information Returns). And with the genie out of the box, we’ve seen homecare providers rapidly embracing and demanding AI for the benefits it brings to both reducing admin and improving client outcomes through prediction and detection.

The aim for the NHS is for people to have a 'doctor in their pocket' in the form of the NHS App, touted as a "full front door to the entire NHS" by 2028. That also includes a Single Patient Record (SPR), which will bring together ALL of a person’s health and care records together in one place. What’s coming is new legislation that places a duty on every health and care provider to make the information they record about a person, available to that person. There will also be legislation to give people access to their SPR by default.

Some of the features of the new NHS app that are relevant for homecare include:

• My Care - a place for people to manage their long-term conditions

• My Carer - for coordinating the care of a loved one or relative and used by carers as proof of identity when contacting GPs, hospitals and pharmacies, planned for rollout in March 2026

• Continuous monitoring - allowing clinicians to reach out at the first signs of deterioration to prevent an emergency admission to hospital (and make proactive management of patients by the NHS the new normal)

With the vision for the NHS App to be at the centre of how people manage their health, we trust this is finally the moment when data about people’s health and care is finally joined up and sharing critical information becomes quick, uncomplicated and routine.

Sickness to prevention

There are a number of specific programmes listed in the NHS 10 Year Plan that relate to reducing sickness from things like alcohol, tobacco, obesity and cancer. But the crucial element is the proposal:

"We will achieve our goals by harnessing a huge cross-societal energy on prevention. We will work with businesses, employers, investors, local authorities and mayors to create a healthier country together."

This is the big opportunity for homecare to be involved in shaping a new model of care and building healthier communities. As care providers and care workers, you are the people with ears to the ground. You have the day-in, day-out experience of what living a supported and well life at home looks like.

As Jane Townson OBE, CEO of the Homecare Association puts it:

"Every day, homecare workers support older people, disabled people and those with long-term health conditions to live with dignity and independence in their own homes. We’re proud to play a vital role already in keeping people well, connected, and out of hospital."

Opportunities for homecare from the NHS 10 Year Plan

It’s clear from the NHS 10 Year Plan that homecare will - and already is - playing a vital role in shifting England’s health and care system to being preventative and population-centred.

But as the Homecare Association has highlighted, there are concerns that while social care should be utterly fundamental to the successful delivery of this plan, it continues to feel like an add-on or after-thought to a very NHS-centric approach to defining a community-based, preventive health and care system. It feels like there is a change in mindset needed from the government to really see the active role of community-based care providers.

The opportunity for homecare though, is clear:

• Be the experts

• Integration through co-location

• Greater connectivity and insight

• Become equal partners

• Shape a healthier society

I would love to hear your thoughts on how homecare can shape the future of care provision in England.

Simo Hännikkälä
CEO, Nursebuddy

Simo Hännikkälä is the CEO & co-founder of Nursebuddy. An accomplished sailor, Simo steers the Nursebuddy ship, with a focus on product vision and strategy as well as the growth of the business.

References

Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England - executive summary (Department of Health and Social Care, July 2025)

Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England (Department of Health and Social Care, July 2025)

The 10 Year Health Plan and the role for social care (Gov.uk, July 2025)

PM launches new era for NHS with easier care in neighbourhoods (Department of Health and Social Care, July 2025)

The NHS at a Crossroads: The App That Can Transform Britain’s Health (Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, August 2025)

What can social care expect from the NHS 10-Year Plan? (Social Care Institute for Excellence, July 2025)

Independent investigation of the NHS in England (Department of Health and Social Care, September 2024)

Adult social care in England, monthly statistics: July 2025 (Department of Health and Social Care, July 2025)

Homecare Association on NHS 10-Year Plan: Invest in homecare to deliver for people and communities (Homecare Association, July 2025)