What the UK Government's 10-Year Health Plan means for Quality Improvement teams

Picture of Jason Williams

Published on 15 August 2025 at 11:25

by Jason Williams

10-Year Health Plan

 

The UK Government's new 10-Year Health Plan for England, released in July 2025, sets out one of the most ambitious health reform agendas in decades. Framed around improving health outcomes, modernising service delivery, and prioritising prevention, it demands sweeping changes across the NHS.

 

For Quality Improvement (QI) teams, the Plan presents both a challenge and an enormous opportunity. These teams are uniquely positioned to drive, measure, and sustain change on the ground. But success will depend on how quickly and effectively they can adapt to the evolving landscape.

 

 

A Quick Overview of the 10-Year Plan

The Plan is centred on three transformative shifts:

 

  1. From Hospitals to Community-Based Care: Establishing over 1,500 Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs) as the new front door to the NHS. These centres will integrate GP services, community care, mental health, diagnostics, and even social services.
  2. From Analogue to Digital: Expanded use of AI, wearables, genomic services, and a reengineered NHS App. A unified electronic health record for every citizen is expected by 2028.
  3. From Sickness to Prevention: Tackling upstream causes of ill health with interventions like universal free school meals, health-related incentives (e.g. discounts for gym memberships), and digital tools that reward healthy behaviours.

More than a strategic blueprint, the Plan represents a recalibration of the entire health system.

 

 

Implications for NHS Quality Improvement Teams

1. Redefining the Scope of Quality

Traditional QI efforts have often focused on secondary care and reactive interventions. The Plan's community-first model means QI teams must:

Design metrics for multi-disciplinary teams in Neighbourhood Health Centres.

Create quality frameworks for preventive interventions, like diabetes prevention or mental health resilience programs in schools.

Evaluate digital-first services, such as remote monitoring for heart failure patients or AI triage tools in urgent care.

 

Example: In Salford, early pilots of integrated health centres showed a 22% reduction in A&E visits when QI teams embedded real-time dashboards to flag and address service gaps.

 

2. Transparency and Patient Voice

With the abolition of Healthwatch England, patient experience will now be routed directly through the NHS App, where users can rate services and leave reviews.

 

QI teams must:

Build systems to extract and analyse app-based feedback.
Integrate patient sentiment into improvement cycles.
Ensure new services don't unintentionally widen health inequalities.

 

Example: A pilot in East London showed that automated sentiment analysis of NHS App reviews helped one Trust identify and address language barriers in its digital booking system.

 

3. Accelerating Innovation with Evidence

The Plan promotes AI, genomics, and tech-driven models—but adoption is not enough. QI teams must ensure these tools deliver meaningful improvements.

 

Partnering with Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs), QI teams can:

Run controlled pilots for AI diagnostic tools.
Evaluate the impact of genomic screening on patient pathways.
Use PDSA cycles to fine-tune virtual wards and chatbot triage systems.

 

Case Study: In Greater Manchester, a collaboration with Health Innovation Manchester and QI teams led to the safe scaling of AI in radiology reporting, reducing backlog by 40% in 9 months.

 

4. System-Level Collaboration and Workforce Change

The Plan empowers Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) with more control over budgets and service design. QI teams need to operate across traditional boundaries, supporting:

Workforce upskilling in QI methods across primary, community, and digital services.
Cross-sector collaboration with local authorities, voluntary sector, and tech providers.
Cultural transformation to support continuous improvement.

 

Example: The West Yorkshire ICS embedded QI coaches across its community mental health teams, resulting in a 30% improvement in care plan completion rates.

 

5. Aligning QI with Productivity and Outcomes

The Plan mandates year-on-year productivity gains, with funding increasingly tied to performance and patient outcomes.

 

QI teams must:

Develop metrics aligned with new funding models.
Demonstrate ROI through improved throughput, reduced waste, and better outcomes.
Embed cost-effectiveness as a standard lens in all improvement projects.

 


 

How QI Teams Can Lead the Change

Focus Area QI Team Role
Neighbourhood Care Design and measure multidisciplinary service effectiveness
Digital Health Evaluate tech solutions, ensure safety and user experience
Prevention Track long-term impacts of behavioural health interventions
Transparency Integrate app-based patient feedback into continuous learning
Innovation Run pilots, partner with AHSNs, publish improvement outcomes
Collaboration Operate across ICSs, local councils, and third-party providers
Productivity Align improvement with funding and efficiency targets

 

 

Final Thoughts

The NHS’s 10-Year Plan isn’t just a policy document - it’s a mandate for radical, system-wide transformation. Quality Improvement teams should not be passive implementers but active architects of this change.

 

By embedding data-driven, patient-centred, and collaborative approaches, QI teams can ensure the NHS doesn't just evolve - but thrives.

 

As the old NHS operating model retires, the new one will be built in real-time. It will be built by the teams who measure, test, and improve care every day. And at the heart of that work will be, or rather should be, Quality Improvement.

 

 

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