Neighbourhood health

PCC supports the development of neighbourhood health.

Neighbourhood health needs to build on strong primary and community care foundations. Good foundations are essential to enable collaborative working, integrated services and to enable a shift to community that builds on the strengths of the population, providers and the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector.

Our support includes:

• Helping commissioners secure and appropriately manage primary care contracts (medical, dental, ophthalmic and pharmaceutical services) including locally commissioned services
• Developing good engagement with all primary care provider professions and integrated care boards (ICBs) and neighbourhoods
• Supporting primary care contractors to deliver resilient, sustainable services, including working at scale and developing collaborations
• Planning estate infrastructure ensuring best use of all facilities across a neighbourhood or place and making the best use of infrastructure investments
• Developing local leaders with skills in collaboration, teaming, influencing across boundaries, able to develop psychologically safe work environments and lead with compassion
• Provision of safe spaces for leaders to share challenges and work with peers to develop solutions, through our expert networking sessions and action learning sets
• Supporting healthcare transformation in the areas of:
  • Moving care closer to communities, developing the potential of primary care services
  • Using technology and digital solutions to support how primary care operates and how patients access and manage their care
  • Supporting the implementation of preventative approaches to support wellness.

How we will do this:

We are already supporting commissioners to secure and manage primary care contracts:

• Helpdesk – advising on primary care contract matters and primary care premises
• Workshops – including introductions to the commissioning of all primary care services, the management of contract variations, notices and management of difficult situations. This includes areas such as flexible commissioning of dental services and use of the provider selection regime.
• Hands on support – for example around contract variations, review of contracts, including locally commissioned services, ensuring best value is obtained, negotiating and agreeing contracts – for example for provision of eyecare and dental services into special schools.

Supporting resilient, sustainable services, working at scale and developing collaborations:

• Resilience support to vulnerable providers – for example, diagnostic reviews including workflow, working practices, use of the multi-disciplinary team, support to develop new ways of working, financial reviews, practice manager mentoring and support, optimising ways of working in the practice etc
• Support regarding Care Quality Commission assessments – for primary medical care and dentists, through workshops, resources and hands on support
• Helping practices and primary care networks (PCNs) develop business continuity plans
• Developing engagement with primary care providers – for example engagement with primary eye care providers, dentists across neighbourhoods and ICBs. This can then support work with secondary care to redesign services and move to a community first model. For example, via managed clinical networks for dentistry, or following eye health needs assessments across place or ICBs
• Working with providers to enable at scale working, through alliances, federations, and collaborations, as multi-neighbourhood providers emerge and engagement with communities.

Contact us to discuss expert hands on support enquiries@pcc-cic.org.uk.

Planning estate infrastructure across primary care:

• Identifying estate resources at ICB, place, PCN or neighbourhood level, recommending how to make optimum use of the facilities available
• Developing estate plans for PCN, place or integrated care boards, including the identification of core, flex and tail categories and recommendations regarding investment
• Business cases and project initiation documentation for estate development

Developing leaders

NHS England’s Neighbourhood Health Guidelines 2025/26 demands “a collaborative high-support, high-challenge culture, which fosters strong relationships between all system partners, including the NHS, local government, social care providers and the VCFSE sector”

Collaboration is complex – culture, people, power and politics can be high hurdles. It’s not a new idea and when asked many of the leaders attending our training will be able to demonstrate some ways in which they work well with others across primary care. Why though is it still so challenging to work truly collaboratively? The answers to that probably include the way the funding flows, workplace culture and public expectation and understanding. To extend that way of working across neighbourhoods, primary care will need to continue to improve its collaborative working starting at team and organisation level and upscaling its leadership behaviours.

PCC’s leadership development provides answers and offers the opportunity to share experience and learn from one another. We explore what skills are needed for collaborative working. Role-power may be of less impact when working with peers from different organisations, so we stimulate discussion around how to influence without authority. We know that building trust needs emotionally able, compassionate leaders. Our training provides theories to support the development of compassionate leadership and challenges people to look beyond what and who they know to broaden the knowledge and strengthen patient services.

“Excellent platform for sharing in a confidential non judgmental surrounding. I was lucky to have a brilliant facilitator in Helen and also an engaged, participating group who I learnt an awful lot from, not only about work but about how the NHS operates as a whole. Helen asked thought provoking questions and encouraged group participation that did the same.“

• You can book places on our leadership programmes
• We can offer bespoke sessions designed for your teams across ICBs, PCNs or in your practice for instance we can provide facilitation to help consider and develop possible MNPs, explore governance issues such as decision making processes and agree new ways of working collaboratively. We are providing tailored facilitation support for PCNs morphing into SNPs and SNPs joining to form MNPs/federations and can share knowledge as well as providing the neutrality required to support open and honest discussion.
• Executive coaching, action learning sets and workshops are available. Action learning sets provide an excellent opportunity for groups to come together in a safe environment to share experience, challenges and concerns while testing out ideas and working towards solutions. Expertly facilitated by coaches, our sets can support making plans and finding a way forward.

To find out more https://pcc-cic.org.uk/leadership/ or contact helen.ellis@pcc.nhs.uk.

Supporting healthcare transformation

• Working with integrated care boards, PCNs, place or neighbourhoods to consider care redesign, including management of on the day care using at scale approaches, supporting continuity of care for those where this is appropriate, and considering how care currently delivered in hospitals can be delivered in local communities.
• Helping practices and PCNs maximise use of AI and digital technologies to support operational efficiencies in general practice. Considering how AI and digital solutions can support patient care and the appropriate scale to enable these approaches to be contracted.
• Working with local areas to develop approaches to prevent existing conditions worsening and to prevent illness through identifying those at risk and supporting the development of approaches to reduce risk factors.
• Collaborative working to build on the strengths of local communities and working with the VCFSE sector will support these approaches.
• Hand in hand with changes to how services are provided there will need to be changes to how they are contracted, and areas may wish to consider commissioning for outcomes and reviewing locally commissioned services.
• Working at scale can provide shared infrastructure to support neighbourhood service delivery and support individual practice/organisational resilience. Getting the approach right with local ownership of the solution is vital, as is including the role of all primary care providers.

Contact enquiries@pcc-cic.org.uk to find out more.

To make the shift to wellbeing, and maximise care delivered in the community, the first steps are to ensure that primary care has the leaders, workforce, capacity and estate required, and is working in an optimum way with resilient, sustainable services at the right scale to effectively deliver services. PCC is here to support commissioners and providers realise the potential of neighbourhood health.

Resources

Neighbourhood health – reflecting on policy and involving citizens
Professor David Colin-Thomé, chair of PCC, reflects on the neighbourhood health policy and considers how this should be taken further through collaboration, as equal partners, between health workers, care workers and everyday citizens.

Models of care for neighbourhood health
PCC associate Dr Steven Laitner considers what new models of care might include, with three models suggested, from urgent care to prevention. Read the article here.

Community oriented integrated practice supports neighbourhood health
This blog by Paul Thomas considers the opportunity for high-quality, low-cost care – through collaboration between health workers, care workers and everyday citizens to help deliver neighbourhood health. NHS Networks and PCC are delighted to be working with Community Orientated Integrated Networks (COIN) and we have set up a network where their resources will be available for all to access on NHS Networks. You can join the network, and access resources via this link.

Developing neighbourhoods
Neighbourhoods are expected to develop local communities for health and care. In this blog Paul Thomas explains that communities for health and care do not happen simply by co-locating people, a sequence of shared developmental spaces can help participants take small, coordinated actions towards their shared vision. Community Orientated Integrated Networks (COIN) has collated good practice and resources to support neighbourhood development. You can ask to join their network on NHS Networks to access free resources.

Developing neighbourhoods – what is health?
This blog by Paul Thomas, of Community Orientated Integrated Networks (COIN) explores what is health and how neighbourhoods can use difficult situations to develop communities of hope. COIN is sharing resources to support the development of neighbourhoods on NHS Networks. To join the network and access resources click here.

NHS Networks supports neighbourhood health
NHS Networks is a free to use networking and news resource that has nearly 40,000 members and spans health and social care. In this article Maria Axford explores how you can use NHS Networks as a networking platform to support the development of neighbourhood health. PCC supports and manages NHS Networks as a free resource for those interested in health and care.

Developing neighbourhoods – getting started
This article by Paul Thomas from Community Orientated Integrated Networks (COIN) outlines that to develop neighbourhoods use cycles of collaborative learning and coordinated action to motivate participants to make positive changes about shared concerns. COIN offers tips for getting started with neighbourhoods. NHS Networks hosts a network with more resources from COIN follow this link to join and access the resources.

Developing neighbourhoods – university partnerships
This article from the Community Orientated Integration Network (COIN) explores the relationship between neighbourhoods and universities. Including how universities can support neighbourhoods with evaluation, navigating literature, and other areas. More COIN articles and resources are available on their network on NHS Networks, click here to request to join.

Five questions every neighbourhood should answer
As neighbourhoods and multi-neighbourhoods develop there are five crucial questions that should be answered before new organisations or governance structures are created. Leaders should consider purpose, leadership and accountability. This article, authored jointly by PCC and GGi, suggests that the organisations most likely to succeed will not necessarily be those with the most sophisticated legal structures. They will be those that develop the capability to work together effectively.