The Government and NHS England have launched ‘Change NHS’, a national conversation which will help to shape the new 10-year plan for the NHS, to be launched next Spring.

They are calling on NHS staff and members of the public to share their experiences views and ideas for fixing the NHS via the online platform, change.nhs.uk, which will be live until the start of next year, and available via the NHS App.

In a joint-letter to all NHS staff, Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and Amanda Pritchard, Chief Executive of NHS England have set out why change is needed and how everyone can play a part.

The 10 year-plan will be based on three key themes, highlighted as the way forward in the recent Lord Darzi report. They are:

• A shift from hospital to community –including new neighbourhood health centres, where people can see family doctors, district nurses, care workers, physiotherapists, health visitors or mental health specialists under the same roof.
• Moving from analogue to digital –bringing together a single patient record, summarising patient health information, test results, and letters in one place, through the NHS App and making it quicker and easier to share information between different parts of the NHS.
• Sickness to prevention – shorten the time people spend in ill health and prevent illnesses before they happen. This may include the use of wearable technology to monitor the health of patients with certain conditions in the comfort of their own home.

Please take the time to share your experiences and ideas through the new national portal at https://change.nhs.uk.

Please encourage patients and staff to take part.