July 2025 saw the launch of the NHS 10-year plan. Vic Rayner, CEO of The National Care Forum (NCF) – the leading association for not-for-profit social care – argues that, while welcoming the plan, “adult social care needs to be at the heart of this new world”.

The NHS 10-year plan, officially titled “Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England” is focused around the three shifts – from hospital to community, from analogue to digital and from sickness to prevention – which are designed to feed into overall system improvement to create better access to health and care for people and improve efficiencies for staff.  

We welcome the NHS 10 Year Plan’s focus on neighbourhood delivery, as communities are where much of social care and support has always taken place in supporting individuals and their families to live well.

It is imperative for the successful implementation of the shift from hospitals to community that adult social care is baked into these plans from the outset.

Also essential is that adult social care providers take their place at the heart of multidisciplinary teams and are viewed as equal partners with the NHS; this dynamic will be crucial in creating the community focus on taking joined up care closer the people who need it, which appears to be the fundamental change that the 10 Year Plan is seeking to achieve. 

The plan includes increasing responsibilities for care professionals so that they can carry out more healthcare tasks including issuing medication, checking blood pressure and wound dressing. We support the ambition of an increased recognition of the role of care workers in delivering integrated health and care tasks, framed around people’s needs, but this can only work if the funding, training and support flows with the additional responsibilities.

And, in order for this plan to reflect what people need now and, in the future, to live healthy lives, it is important that through co-production peoples’ voices are heard in shaping the neighbourhood health hubs that will deliver their care closer to them.   

The vision to deliver more care closer to home and put a stronger focus on prevention makes sense, but we have significant concerns around how adult social care is to be enabled to contribute fully to the 10 Year Plan while the sector remains so fragile.

The need for reform and investment has never been greater and we urge government to think carefully about the investment and culture change that need to be in place in order for adult social care to be at the heart of this new world and not be forgotten or overlooked as plans begin to be implemented. 

The current Covid Inquiry Module 6 proceedings are painting a worrying portrait of the damage caused by the power imbalance between health and care in policy making and policy implementation.

It is vital that adult social care is seen as an equal partner, with a leadership role in neighbourhood delivery and the local expertise, community knowledge and strong connections that care and support providers nurture are brought to the fore to create the strongest possible deliverables for communities.