A Neighbourhood Health Service That Works: Redesigning Services around People and Place

With the publication of the 10-Year Health Plan and the announcement that places will lead the rollout of a neighbourhood health service, Matt Carter and Hannah Szczepanski argue that success hinges on strong place-based leadership. They argue that Neighbourhood Teams must be radically person-centred—designed around people’s lives and the wider determinants of health.

The neighbourhood agenda is gaining serious momentum. The recently published 10-Year Health Plan sets out a bold ambition: to shift care from hospitals into communities, prioritise prevention, and empower neighbourhood decision making.

At the heart of this vision are Neighbourhood Health Centres—‘one stop shops’ for care, starting in areas with the lowest healthy life expectancy, and designed to bring multidisciplinary teams together under one roof.

Rooted in the principles of place-based working, Neighbourhood Teams will bring together professionals from across services into physically co-located teams with shared values, goals and accountability. These teams will not only include existing roles from health and social care, but also expand to include new ones such as Community Health Workers, reflecting a broader, more holistic approach to wellbeing.

Place Leading The Way

To make this vision real, the government and NHS England will select 42 Places to lead the rollout of the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme.

Crucially, applications to lead this work must come from local place partnerships. NHS Trusts, Councils, GPs, Primary Care Networks and VCSE organisations are all eligible to apply, but success will depend on their ability to demonstrate coordinated leadership at place level.

“Place” is the space between systems (the emerging Strategic Authorities, ICBs/ICPs) and neighbourhoods. It’s where public service leaders can come together to create an enabling environment – so that collaborative neighbourhood working becomes the system, rather than having to fight against it.

This is hard to achieve at a system level – there are too many players and it’s too large a scale to be able to think locally and forge the relationships that are needed. Place-based organisations are extremely well positioned to lead the ongoing development of Neighbourhood Teams, providing much needed oversight, co-ordination, and connection to communities.

At Mutual Ventures, we’ve supported Places like Brent and South Ayrshire to develop neighbourhood working plans through our Radical Place Leadership approach. We’ve seen the power of place leaders to convene partners, foster innovation, and create the enabling environment Neighbourhood Teams need to succeed.

As Places step up to lead, the challenge now is to ensure Neighbourhood Teams don’t just reflect the system as it is— but become the foundation of a new one, built around people and what matters to them.

Neighbourhood Teams Must Reflect the Whole System, Not Just Health and Care

Whilst Neighbourhood Teams will be health-and-care-driven, there is a risk that these teams becoming overly medicalised. If Neighbourhood Teams are to succeed, they must embrace a social model of health—one that gives equal weight to the wider determinants of wellbeing, from housing and employment to education and community connection.

Teams should include professionals from beyond health and social care who impact the broader determinants of health, including representatives from housing, schools, police, DWP, as well as voluntary and community sector organisations, alongside community leaders who are often closest to communities.

Ensuring their involvement is crucial to prevent well-intentioned Neighbourhood Teams from becoming another silo in an already disjointed system.

From Co-location to Culture Change

Bringing frontline staff together in Neighbourhood Teams is a step forward—but it’s not transformation on its own.

To truly improve support for residents, especially those with complex needs, we must go beyond reorganising staff or co-locating services. The default method of providing support through a range of siloed services - marked by stringent eligibility criteria, inflexible service user pathways, repeated assessments, and endless cycles of signposting and referrals – force people to navigate a maze of disconnected services. It also prevents teams from understanding what’s really going on in someone’s life and delivering the holistic, bespoke support that makes a difference.

Neighbourhood Teams must break from these habits. Without changing how we work—not just where we work—we risk replicating the same systemic issues in a new structure. Transformation means rethinking roles, relationships, and the culture of public service delivery.

Relational by Default: Putting People at the Centre

True transformation starts with how we relate to people—not just how we organise services.

Neighbourhood Teams must foster a culture where human-to-human support can thrive. That means starting with listening, building trust, and tailoring support to what matters most to each person. It means moving away from repetitive assessments and rigid pathways, and instead investing time in understanding lives, not just needs.

This approach calls for more generalist relationship-builders at the front door—freeing up specialists and reducing delays. It also requires a shift in mindset: giving frontline teams the permission, time and flexibility to solve problems creatively and build meaningful relationships.

Relational working shouldn’t be radical—but in today’s system, it is. Making it the norm will take courageous leadership, flexible funding, and a willingness to challenge the status quo.

What Happens Next?

Neighbourhood working isn’t just a new delivery model—it’s a chance to build a system that sees people, listens to them, and walks alongside them. Let’s not settle for better coordination. Let’s build something fundamentally better.

The announcement of the 42 rollout sites is a pivotal moment. We hope to see some of them push the boundaries of what Neighbourhood Teams can be.

To those preparing applications: think boldly. Build partnerships that go beyond health and care. Design teams that reflect the full spectrum of local need. And above all, commit to working in ways that are radically human.

If you are interested in finding out more about our work to support place-based, neighbourhood, get in touch with matt.carter@mutualventures.co.uk or hannah.szczepanski@mutualventures.co.uk