Neighbourhood health and INT FAQs

Q. What is a ‘neighbourhood’ in the context of the 10 Year Health Plan?
A neighbourhood is a defined local area—typically around 30,000–50,000 people—where health, social care and community organisations work together to improve population health and deliver more care closer to home. The geography of a neighbourhood should make sense to the community that live within it.

Some neighbourhoods will be aligned to previously defined Primary Care Networks (PCNs), whilst in other areas this may not be the case.

Q. What is neighbourhood health?
The NHS describes neighbourhood health as a model that shifts care away from hospitals and into local communities, focusing on prevention, better access and improved health outcomes.

Other organisations describe neighbourhood health slightly differently and acknowledge the importance of wider services (including voluntary sector) coming together at a local level to improve health and wellbeing, whilst the description used by many community organisations focuses more on the people and communities themselves, what they need and want and working with them to build local assets.

The NHS England Neighbourhood health guidelines 2025/26 highlight six core components of neighbourhood health:

1. Integrated teams for people with complex needs
2. Urgent community response and virtual wards
3. Improved access to general practice
4. Continuity of care for those who need it most
5. Strengthened core community services
6. Better use of population health data and digital tools

Q. Why is the NHS prioritising neighbourhood health?
The 10 Year Health Plan highlights that demand on hospital services is unsustainable, with more people living with complex, long‑term conditions. Neighbourhood health is intended to help address issues such as fragmentation, duplication, and delays, creating a more coordinated and preventative model of care. The aim is to help people live healthier, more independent lives and to provide care at a time and place that fits around people’s lives.

Q. How does the 10 Year Health Plan support neighbourhood development?
The Plan sets a national ambition to establish a neighbourhood health service, supported by new policy, some investment and national implementation programmes. It proposes more out‑of‑hospital care, “one‑stop‑shop” neighbourhood health centres and expanded neighbourhood‑level workforce models. A National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme commenced roll out to accelerate this transformation across selected sites in 2025.

Q. How is neighbourhood health going to happen?
The 10 Year Health Plan introduces the idea of two new neighbourhood provider contracts which, according to the Plan, will begin to roll-out in 2026/27. The new ‘single neighbourhood provider’ contract will cover a population of around 50,000 people. It will be expected to deliver additional services across one neighbourhood area. This type of provider appears to be an evolution or alternative to primary care networks, which currently do something similar.

The ‘multi-neighbourhood provider’ contract is larger and will cover footprints of around 250,000 or more people. The aim of this contract is to unlock new benefits of scale, providing GP practices and other smaller community providers with consolidated back offices, data analytics, quality improvement infrastructure. Notably, this type of contract will be open to both general practice ‘at scale’ (e.g. primary care provider collaboratives or GP federations) and NHS trusts.

For both of these contracts, much of the detail is not yet known. Multi-neighbourhood providers may be able to offer further integration across services due to their likely scale and the involvement of NHS trusts.

There are also plans to allow the ‘very best’ NHS foundation trusts to become integrated health organisations (IHOs) able to hold the whole health budget for a local population. How IHOs fit with the two new neighbourhood contracts is currently unclear.

Q. What are Integrated Neighbourhood Teams (INTs)?
Integrated Neighbourhood Teams—sometimes referred to as neighbourhood health teams—are multidisciplinary teams bringing together professionals from:

• Primary care (including community pharmacy)
• Community physical and mental health services
• Social care
• Local government services
• Voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) partners

They are designed to work as a coordinated whole, rather than as isolated services, to improve outcomes, reduce inequalities and streamline patients’ care journeys bringing care closer to home wherever possible.

Q. What is the purpose of Integrated Neighbourhood Teams?
INTs aim to:

• Deliver proactive, preventative care enabling people to stay well and independent at home
• Improve coordination for people with complex needs by bringing together (and making better use of) primary care, community health, mental health, social care and voluntary sector partners
• Reduce avoidable hospital admissions and long-term care needs
• Strengthen relationships across local health and care providers to reduce silo working and duplication to create improved ways of working
• Ensure care is easier to access, more personalised and designed around individuals, families and communities and delivered closer to home

Evidence shows that well‑designed neighbourhood models can improve continuity, referral pathways and long‑term condition management.

Q. What is the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme?
The National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme (NNHIP) is covered in a dedicated section on the Neighbourhood health and Integrated Neighbourhood Teams page.

Q. What is a neighbourhood health centre?
Information on neighbourhood health centres can be found in a dedicated section on the Neighbourhood health and Integrated Neighbourhood Teams page.

Q. What services may be delivered through neighbourhood models?
The 10 Year Health Plan highlights that care should happen as locally as possible: digitally by default, in a patient’s home if possible, in a neighbourhood health centre when needed, in a hospital if necessary and focus on prevention wherever possible.

Neighbourhood models are likely to include:

• Neighbourhood Health Centres providing integrated primary care – some of these may be new premises, but most likely involve re-purposing of existing premises within the neighbourhood.
• Enhanced GP access – this has been an NHS priority for some time and will continue to be so to keep people out of hospital wherever possible.
• Community‑based specialist clinics will support the left shift, ‘hospital to community’ and enable people to access specialist care without the need to go to a hospital.
• Digital care pathways and improved data sharing to drive efficiencies and collaboration in neighbourhood care, delivering improved patient and population outcomes.
• Preventative programmes targeting local inequalities will support the shift of ‘sickness to prevention’ and may involve medical and non-medical interventions to support holistic wellbeing, designed around patient cohorts, preventing people from becoming ill.

Q. How will community pharmacies be involved in neighbourhoods and INTs?
Community pharmacies are essential partners within neighbourhood teams offering accessible, trusted and preventative care within communities.

Community pharmacies already provide a range of services that support neighbourhood priorities:

• Medicines expertise and optimisation ensuring safe, effective and efficient use of medicines across care settings, for example through the New Medicine Service
• Support for long‑term condition management and supporting hospital discharge
• Health promotion and prevention providing vaccination services, hypertension case-finding and healthy lifestyle advice
• Access to urgent care services such as Pharmacy First

Pharmacies can help deliver the neighbourhood goal of accessible, preventative, community‑based care, working closely with GP practices, community services and social care. The shift towards integrated neighbourhood working reinforces pharmacy’s role as a core partner within a neighbourhood health service.

Community pharmacy’s role in neighbourhoods is summarised in this one-page infographic which can be tailored to an individual pharmacy’s needs and shared with local stakeholders if appropriate.

Q. What does this mean for pharmacy teams day‑to‑day?
It’s likely to be too early to notice any tangible differences linked to the new programme of neighbourhood working yet, although it is important to recognise that community pharmacies already provide a neighbourhood health service.

However, each neighbourhood is likely to have its own leadership structure, its own priorities and its own rate of progress. Furthermore, it is unclear how funding will flow between Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) and neighbourhoods and what the new opportunities for community pharmacy service delivery will be to support neighbourhood priorities in the future. This makes it challenging for pharmacy owners to plan and anticipate the impact of neighbourhood working.

Community pharmacy teams should continue to focus on delivering national Advanced services and any local services they are commissioned to provide whilst we await further guidance. Where there are opportunities to engage with local GP practices and raise awareness of existing services, such as Pharmacy First, the Hypertension Case-Finding Service and the Pharmacy Contraception Service these opportunities should be actively pursued.  These services are designed to improve access to services for patients and, by moving lower acuity patients into community pharmacy, enable GP practices to focus on more complex patients. GP practices will continue to be a very important stakeholder for our sector and building relationships with them remains a priority.

In time, through neighbourhood development and maturity, pharmacy teams may experience:

• Greater involvement in multidisciplinary planning
• Increased demand for preventative services and clinical roles
• More structured referrals between pharmacies, GPs and community teams
• A clearer role within local population health management
• Participation in new neighbourhood‑level initiatives and pilots

Q. How can pharmacy owners and teams access further support?
Local Pharmaceutical Committees (LPCs) are working locally with ICBs and neighbourhoods to represent community pharmacy at relevant meetings and raise awareness of the services provided.

Your LPC should be the primary contact point to seek information on how neighbourhoods are developing in your area or if you are approached directly by someone working for the neighbourhood team.

You can use the LPC finder to find your LPC’s website.

Q. How will neighbourhood working improve outcomes for patients?
Whilst neighbourhood working in many areas is at an early stage, neighbourhood models aim to deliver:

• More joined‑up and person‑centred care delivered as close to home as possible
• Earlier identification of health risks
• Greater focus on prevention and wellbeing
• Faster access to services
• Reduced waiting times and avoidable referrals
• Stronger support for people with complex care needs