When the Department of Health and Social Care set out to understand what people wanted from the NHS 10 Year Plan, they did something interesting: they asked. Not through a traditional consultation that attracts the usual suspects, but through a comprehensive engagement programme, Change NHS, delivered by Thinks Insight and Strategy, Kaleidoscope Health and Care and the Institute for Public Policy Research. The programme captured a quarter of a million contributions from NHS staff, patients and crucially, seldom-heard communities. The resulting insight report, published in December with minimal fanfare, offers local government leaders something invaluable, intelligence about what their residents actually need from a prevention-focused health system.
Engagement at scale reveals truths that policy assumptions miss. When asked about prevention, respondents didn't simply endorse more screening or health education. Instead, both staff and the public said that preventing illness cannot be the NHS's job alone. They called for action on housing quality, support with healthy eating, exercise, smoking cessation, workplace interventions and cultural shifts, all domains in which local authorities have crucial influence to affect change.
