Local digital maturity will shape the Neighbourhood Health Service

The government’s Neighbourhood Health Service must be based on local levels of digital maturity rather than follow a central blueprint, according to NHS digital leaders.

Speaking at Digital Health’s Digital Foundations for Neighbourhood Care webinar on 19 November 2025, a panel of experts highlighted that regional variation in system maturity and data infrastructure will define how quickly the neighbourhood care model in the NHS 10 year health plan takes hold.

John Mitchell, associate director of digital at Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, said that there is “no one size fits all” solution for neighbourhood working.

He added that differences in local demographics, provider types and digital maturity mean that each system will need to find its own way to implement shared digital tools and enable collaboration between health, social care and the voluntary sector.

One of the biggest challenges is creating a “single point of truth” across disparate systems to prevent duplication and enable joint decision-making, Mitchell said.

Mitchell, who is also chair of the Digital Health Networks Integrated Care System Digital Council, highlighted that progress on the Neighbourhood Health Model will depend on collaboration and trust between areas.

“If we all worked as one team rather than 15 different organisations and we start to rationalise our workflow a bit, we might start creating a bit of capacity.

“We’ve got to just recognise there are a lot of ducks to line up, a lot of capacity to find from somewhere and then a lot of trust needs to be generated across the systems,” he said.

Emma McLachlan, director for digital products and platforms at NHS England, said: “We know that systems are all at different starting points of maturity and ability to look at population health and I think our role nationally is to figure out what the component parts of our enablers can do to support the different states of maturity for systems.”

She added that the centre needs to learn from local systems and “be really specific”.

“We need to listen very carefully to the system and unpack what the problem areas are and where we nationally can reduce costs, reduce burden and do things,” McLachlan said.

Dr Lia Ali, consultant psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Trust and member of the Digital Health Networks Chief Clinical Information Officer Advisory Panel, said that the 43 ‘vanguard sites’ to initially roll out the Neighbourhood Health Service, including Croydon where she works, will “set the pattern” for the programme.

“It’s not about a particular bit of digital technology. It’s about a model shift and the opportunity is huge there for me.

“That means thinking about from a digital perspective, it’s thinking about that full landscape of capability we have now and what we could have in the future,” she said.

Meanwhile, the government has pledged to open more than 100 Neighbourhood Health Centres by 2030, with construction delivered by a “new approach between the public and private sector, involving both repurposing current estate and new buildings”.

You can watch the full webinar recording here.