10 Year Health Plan Engagement
The biggest public conversation about the future of the NHS since its birth has been launched. It calls upon the entire country to share their experiences of our health service and give their views on its future and the 10-Year-Plan for Health.
NHS staff are facing an unprecedented number of challenges - record demand for care, growing pressures from an ageing population, rising levels of multiple long-term illnesses and patients with more complex needs. And staff are having to manage this while often using outdated tech, seeing patients in crumbling buildings, and struggling to discharge patients when they’re ready to leave due to pressure in social care - all of which means too many patients are waiting too long for the care they need.
So, it is vital the health service innovates and adapts – as it has always done throughout its 76-year history – to design and deliver an NHS fit for the future. The 10-Year Health Plan is a chance to do just that – it will make the best practice, normal practice across England.
As the recent Lord Darzi review made clear, many of the solutions to the challenges facing the health service can be found in parts of the NHS today. So, alongside the Government, we will be carrying out the largest ever staff engagement exercise in NHS history. We will harness frontline views, alongside those of patients and the public, to ensure we uncover them.
It is your experiences – of the good, bad, and sometimes frustrating – that we need to help shape this once in a generation opportunity, so please get involved.
Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting launches biggest national conversation about the NHS (BSL)
Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard asks you to have your day on the future of the NHS (BSL)
How you can get involved
Whether you have a little to say or a lot, your views, experiences and ideas will shape immediate steps and long-term changes: a new 10-Year Health Plan for the NHS. This is a once in a generation opportunity to make the NHS fit for the future. Together we can fix it. We need your voice.
Our 10 Year Health Plan Engagement plans for Somerset
Public survey
Whether you have a little to say or a lot, your views, experiences and ideas will shape immediate steps and long-term changes: a new 10-Year Health Plan for the NHS. There is also an opportunity to tell us about a recent experience of health and/or care services in as much or as little detail as you wish. This could be an experience where you or a family member accessed care as a patient. Or it could be about the overall performance of the health and care system. Just click on the link shown above, to get involved.
Accessibility
If you would prefer to submit your response in another format, for example a video in British Sign Language (BSL), sharing your responses over the telephone or in a specific text format (for example, with different contrast colours or font sizes, please email Change NHS.
You can also post a response. If you are preparing a written response, please structure your response using the questions in the printable version and post it to the following address:
Thinks Insight and Strategy
Somerset House
London
United Kingdom
WC2R 1LA
Feedback from staff
As well as patient and public experience, we are keen to hear about the experiences and thoughts of our local health and care staff.
If you work in health and care in Somerset, you can take part by sharing your views and experiences online (see above) or we are planning both online and in-person staff engagement events early in 2025.
Organisational responses
Both NHS Somerset Integrated Care Board (ICB) and our provider organisations have been invited to submit organisational responses to key questions around the three key shifts; hospital to community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention. Organisations have been asked to consider what they would want to see included in the 10-Year Health Plan, challenges and enablers to achieve the three shifts and ideas around policies that would support positive change.
Community engagement
We will be working with Healthwatch Somerset, Spark Somerset, who our VCFSE (voluntary, charity, faith and social enterprise) Lead Organisation and with members of our Somerset Citizens' Hub, to ensure that as many Somerset residents as possible, share their views, thought and experiences. We will share our plans with you here, as these develop.
Targeted community engagement
We are currently planning our engagement with diverse people & community groups, focusing on those who are most likely to experience health inequalities, for example Core20PLUS5. It is vital that we ensure that everyones voice is heard.