This week’s blog is written by our Digital Resources Manager, Blayne.
Explore how care coordination can transform the NHS as it prepares to launch its 10-year plan – improving outcomes, access, and trust in UK healthcare.
With the NHS 10-year plan being released in the next few months (Summer 2025), the Connected Care: Transforming Care Coordination in the UK report couldn’t have come at a better time.
Learn why care coordination should be incorporated into the NHS 10-year plan and is vital to all three upcoming NHS shifts.
The public perceives the National Health Service (NHS) as one of Britain’s greatest national treasures – and rightly so!
Despite this being true, satisfaction with the NHS has never been lower.
Did you know?
A national treasure refers to a person, object, place, or cultural work that is widely cherished by the public and seen as an important part of the nations identity or heritage.
Examples of UK national treasures include:
- The Tower of London
- Hadrians Wall
- Stonehenge
- Shakespeares plays
- David Attenborough
- The Beatles music
In September 2024, 7.6 million individuals were on the NHS waiting list for non-urgent, elective treatment, such as hip replacements, hernia repairs and cataract removals that weren’t life-threatening.
Frustratingly, 3 million individuals were on the NHS waiting list to see a GP or NHS dentist for over 18 months, and a disheartened 10% of individuals were waiting over 12 hours to be seen in A&E.
The NHS standard, where 92% of individuals wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to beginning their consultant-led treatment for non-urgent health conditions, has been far from met.
The Government knows the UK public isn’t getting the quality of care they deserve, which is why it has provided substantial funding to support the NHS in the 2024 Autumn Budget and has been creating a new NHS 10-year plan.
The Government hopes that the new 10-year plan and additional funding will help the country’s beloved NHS deliver its ambitious goal of providing 2 million extra NHS operations, scans and appointments per year in England, equating to an additional 40,000 appointments per week.
Care coordination is central to all three shifts in the NHS 10-year plan
A new report called Connected care: Transforming care coordination in the UK by the Partnership for Change, a collaboration between 10 patient organisations across the UK (including Genetic Alliance UK), brought together and funded by Pfizer, found that care coordination lies at the heart of all three shifts in the upcoming NHS 10-year plan.
This expert-led cohort emphasised why care coordination is vital to improving patient outcomes and why it must be incorporated into the new NHS 10-year plan.
Their report identifies the common challenges of care coordination and concentrates on the negative impact that poor care coordination has on patients.
This report includes practical recommendations on how to improve care coordination and put the patient experience at the heart of reform.
Why getting care coordination right matters
Getting care coordination right the first time and having the NHS function as a single entity despite its various teams and specialities can:
- Save time and resources
- Avoid unnecessary visits to A&E and the hospital
- Increase NHS system efficiency
- Produce accurate referrals, handovers, follow ups and information sharing between healthcare professionals and institutions
Care coordination currently
The NHS 10-year plan is a unique opportunity to improve healthcare in the UK.
The NHS is complex, specialised and divided. Patients across the country are frustrated when interacting with the healthcare system, as they struggle to navigate it. Individuals are constantly having to retell their story, chase referrals and advocate for themselves, many without a healthcare or science background.
Patients feel that the burden is solely placed on them and/or their unpaid caregivers to navigate this disjointed system and move between services. This responsibility should lie with the healthcare professionals and institutions, but patients and caregivers are picking up the slack to help ensure they and/or their loved ones receive the effective care they need and deserve.
Sadly, many give up, which leads to increased readmissions and further strain on an already stretched NHS. Poor care coordination between healthcare teams and institutions is undermining the public’s trust and confidence in the NHS and leading to worse patient outcomes.
Rare community’s experience with care coordination
Living with a rare disease results in patients and families constantly moving between healthcare services. Rare patients and their families have a high exposure to the NHS since their condition may affect multiple body systems, requiring them to meet with a variety of healthcare specialists.
Poor care coordination between a patient’s healthcare team and institutions is impacting their:
- Physical health (Fatigue)
- Financial costs (Travel, accommodation, etc)
- Psychosocial health (Disruption to school/work, emotional burden)
Living with a rare condition also impacts an individual’s mental health, yet management of mental health conditions is not routinely offered as part of a patient’s care.
Many rare conditions are chronic and lifelong, which means care does not end at discharge. Rare patients and their families have ongoing needs that must be met. Care coordination is needed to ensure that post-discharge referrals aren’t missed.
What is hindering successful care coordination?
The Connected care: Transforming care coordination in the UK report identifies that care coordination is hindered by financial constraints, accountability systems and staff reduction. These challenges have intensified and slowed the development of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), which began in 2017 and became law in the 2022 Health and Care Act.
The NHS is accountable to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for its performance. NHS goals are prioritised over wider system goals to ensure that the NHS reaches its performance metrics.
The Partnership for Change’s report emphasises that accountability needs to catch up with the integrated approach for delivering care; the NHS needs to incentivise collaboration between services. Where possible, the NHS should favour multi-disciplinary teams with a single point of contact.
How care coordination factors into the three shifts of the NHS 10-year plan
Good care is patient-centred, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
We explore the role care coordination plays in each of the three shifts of the NHS 10-year plan below to illustrate why it’s at the heart of this reform.
Shift 1: Move care from hospitals to communities
Healthcare is local, which is why moving care from hospitals to the community makes sense. The wait times for hospital appointments, A&E and mental health services are longer than ever. Treating individuals in the hospital is extremely expensive and absorbs most of the NHS budget.
Moving care to local community GP clinics, pharmacies and health centres would reduce long hospital stays, bring care closer to home and provide proactive, personalised healthcare.
This shift relies heavily on efficient communication and coordinated care from all stakeholders involved to become a successful reality. Best practices that exist at local levels should become common practices across the NHS to eliminate the healthcare postcode lottery that determines which medical treatments and services a person can access based on where they live.
Shift 2: Move from analogue to digital to make better use of technology
This shift is critical to modernising the NHS. Even in 2025, some parts of the NHS are still dependent on paper, pagers, slow computers and outdated software. The NHS has fallen victim to the slow and/or uneven adoption of new technology, which has delayed access to the latest treatments for patients across the country, depending on where they live.
The focus for making this technology shift a reality lies with the NHS App.
The NHS App will be the central hub for patients and healthcare professionals to communicate with each other, especially post-discharge. The NHS App is where patients can track and manage their personalised care plans, view upcoming appointments and schedule virtual appointments with their healthcare teams. Coordination from both parties is again a necessity.
The NHS will aim to share electronic records across healthcare teams and institutions and have one, single patient record on file that’s owned by the patient themselves to ensure they have control over their health information.
Currently, patient data is routinely collected and organised across the NHS, but the data focuses on individual services, not how these services work together or are coordinated across the entire care pathway. The NHS needs to collect and share coordinated patient data with decision-making bodies, DHSC and CQC, when evaluating the effectiveness and performance of the NHS to get a full picture of the system.
Shift 3: Move care from sickness to prevention
For this shift to become a reality, a coordinated response is required from both inside and outside the NHS. This shift is all about providing the right care, at the right time, in the right place, as each delay means more time spent in ill health.
Instead of simply treating a symptom or condition when it arises, the NHS will be encouraged to spot illness earlier and tackle the root cause of a patient’s ill health.
To help NHS staff spot illness earlier and predict patient outcomes, the NHS will invest in artificial intelligence (AI) tools and increase screening services. The referral process will seek to become more informed and effective because GPs will have easier access to specialist clinical advice, which should aid in the management of chronic conditions.
The Connected care: Transforming care coordination in the UK report makes it clear that getting care coordination right is essential to the success of all three shifts in the upcoming NHS 10-Year Plan.
Read the report in full here and view case studies from our friends at The Sickle Cell Society, Meningitis Now, Alopecia UK and more!
To learn more about the NHS 10-year plan, visit the following pages:
Thank you for reading this blog.
We hope you enjoyed learning more about care coordination and how this could impact the NHS 10 year plan.
