As the NHS embarks on implementing the 10-Year Health Plan, focusing on the left shift of care and moving services out of hospital settings and into the heart of communities has never been more important. Community Health Partnerships (CHP), whose strategic expertise, coupled with modern, adaptable healthcare facilities, is at the forefront of enabling healthcare delivery, bringing care for patients closer to home in local neighbourhoods.
The 10-Year Health Plan supports the Neighbourhood Health Service with ‘one-stop shop’ Neighbourhood Health Centres in every community. This vision directly aligns with CHP’s long-standing mission to provide innovative and sustainable spaces for patient care closer to home. CHP’s publication, ‘Transforming Neighbourhood Health‘, offers compelling evidence and real-world examples of how our existing community-based assets are already making this vision a reality.
The Government’s mission to deliver Neighbourhood Health Services as set out in its 10 Year Health Plan speaks to the heart of CHP’s purpose and the LIFT model. Through partnership working and unlocking infrastructure solutions across the LIFT estate we are already supporting the transformation of neighbourhood care. This is providing better environments for NHS staff to deliver excellent quality care, resulting in improved patient outcomes and experiences.
Transforming Neighbourhood Health - July 2025 (PDF)
Download 'Transforming Neighbourhood' Health to read more. To find out more about opportunities across the LIFT estate to support the delivery of neighbourhood health services and to access CHP capital, get in touch with your regional team.
Supporting Regional Infrastructure Boards: A strategic voice for community-based care
The North East and Yorkshire Regional Infrastructure Board is attended by colleagues from NHS England, NHS Property Services (NHS PS), and Community Health Partnerships. We provide partner updates, share any relevant organisational information and then focus on all aspects of estates matters. Also, it is a great forum for sharing information and ideas.
The meeting is attended by NHSE Regional Estates Delivery Director, Andrew Gate his team of Estates Delivery Leads, NHS PS Senior Strategy lead Chris White and NHS PS Regional Estates Leads, and CHP Regional Director Dr Jane Fitch and her Strategic Estate Productivity Leads.
About the NE and Yorkshire
The North East and Yorkshire have a population of over 8.5 million people. There are:
- 25 NHS Trusts
- four ICSs which are North East and North Cumbria ICS, Humber and North Yorkshire ICS, South Yorkshire ICS, and West Yorkshire ICS.
- 67 LIFT buildings across the region
- Nine LIFTCos.
It was great to meet up with colleagues from across the North East during our recently held Regional Infrastructure Board meeting. The meeting was hosted by CHP in one of our large group meeting rooms at Norfolk Park Health Centre in Sheffield. We discussed several hot topics, including the 10 year plan, CHP Securing the Future of the LIFT estate programme, and capital funding streams, as well as considering how we could all work together more collaboratively across the North East region to focus on improving overall productivity and efficiency.
Transforming Services through partnership working
Collaborative working has enabled several schemes which have provided better care facilities and economic savings for the health system, including the transfer of services to Wilberforce Centre in Hull and a separate scheme to move physiotherapy services into Westbourne Green Community Hospital in Bradford – both from NHS Property Services facilities, allowing the disposal of assets that were no longer fit for purpose.
How CHP supports repurposing, optimisation, and productivity
CHP can repurpose and adapt our estate to meet the changing needs of care delivery, supporting the NHS to transform and deliver on its ambitious mission. Last year, we delivered more capital investment in the LIFT estate than ever before to enable more care locally. This has delivered great benefits for patients and staff too.
CHP plays a fundamental role in strategic estates planning, providing expertise to develop and implement Local Estate Strategies. By attending Regional Infrastructure Boards, CHP ensures that the needs and potential of community-based estates are central to wider system planning. This active participation helps to unlock estate challenges and find solutions that support the shift of services away from acute hospitals. CHP’s position, working across local health and care systems, allows regional CHP teams to advocate for capital investment in primary and community care infrastructure, repurposing health care centres, to maximise building utilisation for diverse clinical services for patients in their local neighbourhoods.
CHP’s position, working across local health and care systems, allows it to advocate for and provide capital investment in primary and community care infrastructure.
CHP’s National knowledge with local expertise: national ambitions for local needs
With a portfolio of over 300 properties, many in areas of high health needs, CHP possesses invaluable national knowledge while maintaining local expertise. This deep understanding of local demographics, health inequalities, and community requirements informs our strategic guidance to Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and NHS England Regional Estates Teams. This local insight is crucial in tailoring national strategic aims, such as the development of 10 Community Diagnostic Centres (CDCs) across the CHP estate.
Read: How CHP have successfully supported the national Community Diagnostic Centres programme
Strategic investment for enhanced productivity
Facing constraints on NHS capital, CHP focuses on making the most of existing core assets. Through strategic capital investments, we adapt and repurpose space to support new models of care to drive productivity and improve building utilisation. This includes expanding services within existing health centres to reduce the need for hospital visits, reflecting the 10-year plan’s call to bring hospital-based services into the community.
Supporting Integrated Neighbourhood Teams
CHP’s buildings are usually multi-use, housing a mix of tenants and services, including GP practices, community health providers, mental health Trusts, clinical services, diagnostics, and pharmacies. This co-location fosters integrated working between various NHS, local government, and voluntary sector partners, enabling delivery of care by multi-disciplinary neighbourhood teams – a cornerstone of the Neighbourhood Health Service model.
The 10-Year Health Plan articulates a future NHS focused on prevention, digitally enabled, and rooted in community care. CHP, with its strategic presence on infrastructure boards, deep locality expertise, and proven track record of transforming existing estates, is not just supporting this vision – it manages the infrastructure upon which this fundamental shift in healthcare will be delivered.
Authors:
Dr Jane Fitch, CHP Regional Director for North East
and
Nicola Bolton, CHP Strategic Productivity Lead for North East
Get support from CHP
Get in touch with your CHP Regional Director and regional Property and Operations team to find out how they can support services at CHP buildings, providing high-quality, modern, core NHS facilities for patients in their local communities.
Read more Insights from CHP
Read more about our insights on core asset optimisation, place-based care and how CHP supports sustainable NHS infrastructure to enable care for patients closer to home in their local neighbourhoods.
