A Note of Hope x The Patients Association: Energising the Governments 10-Year Health Plan through patient partnership (Patient Partnership Week 2025).
- Ellie Howe
- Sep 11, 2025
- 3 min read
On the 3rd July 2025, the UK government launched a new 10-Year Health Plan for England, which recognises the urgent pressures the health service currently faces - such as staff shortages, long waiting times, and deep inequalities - and proposes three radical shifts in how care will be delivered in order to resolve these in the next decade. These include:
Hospital → Community: Shifting more care away from hospitals and into local neighbourhood health centres, supported by multi-professional teams. This means patients will increasingly access diagnostics, monitoring, and rehabilitation closer to home, reducing the burden on hospitals while improving continuity of care.
Analogue → Digital: Moving from paper and fragmented systems to a fully digital NHS, including a single patient record and an expanded NHS App as the “front door” to care. The plan promises faster access to results, smoother referrals, and more personalised care, while also reducing duplication and administrative burden.
Sickness → Prevention: Tackling illness earlier through prevention, public health, and better use of data to reduce health inequalities. This includes stronger investment in tackling obesity, smoking, and mental health, alongside commitments to address the wider social determinants of health.
Alongside these shifts, the plan also set out other commitments, including:
More transparency in how services perform, with local dashboards so patients can see waiting times and outcomes in real time.
A national workforce strategy (due later in 2025), aiming to recruit, retain, and properly support NHS staff.
A drive to harness innovation, such as AI, robotics, and genomic medicine, with the promise that technology will support - not replace - the human relationships at the heart of care.
For patients in the UK, these aren’t just abstract reforms - they will shape how we access care, how we are listened to, and how our health journeys unfold.
In light of this, I was grateful for the opportunity to join a panel with the Patients Association titled “Energising the 10-Year Health Plan Through Patient Partnership”, as part of their Patient Partnership Week back in July. Alongside Julie Thallon (Chair of the Patients Association), Alf Collins (former NHS England National Clinical Director and current trustee of the Patients Association), and independent patient advocate Ellen Tutton, I was able to share some of my experiences within the health system that align with the priorities laid out in the plan.
My focus was on how gaining digital access to my records through Patients Know Best’s personal health record (which closely mirrors the single patient record proposed in the government’s plan) was genuinely transformative. I could suddenly see my results, track my care, and understand what was happening to me. That gave me more agency and made me more self-sufficient - easing some of the pressure on my already busy healthcare team!
Watch the full panel below on the Patients Association YouTube channel:
The discussion is also available as a podcast.
Listen on Spotify or on the Patients Assosciation website.
Ultimately, at the heart of our panel discussion was a simple but powerful question: what does it really mean to put patients at the centre of this plan? For me, achieving true partnership in healthcare means valuing lived experience just as much as professional expertise. That’s why I’m grateful to offer my voice through charities like the Patients Association and to advocate for the incredible work of organisations like Patients Know Best, who are committed to putting patients first. I believe it's through this kind of partnership that meaningful, lasting change becomes possible.
Thank you to The Patients Assosciation. Find out more about their work here.
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