The 10 Year Health Plan for England – What It Means for Psychological Healthcare

The government released its 10 Year Health Plan for England, "Fit for the Future" on July 3, 2025. This plan aims to make significant changes in healthcare over the next decade. It focuses on three main shifts:

1. Hospital to Community: Moving healthcare services and resources to local "neighbourhood teams" instead of hospitals to respond to longer term health conditions more effectively and efficiently.
2. Analogue to Digital: Using advanced digital technologies to improve treatment and reduce administrative tasks for staff.
3. Sickness to Prevention: Focusing on preventing health issues by reducing risks from factors such as smoking, drinking, and social deprivation.

To understand what this means for psychological healthcare, we should look at the broader implications rather than specific mentions of psychological care in the plan. The plan is ambitious and, if implemented, could make the NHS more focused on psychological health. Here are three key opportunities that I can see:

1. Integrating Psychological Practice in Neighbourhood Teams: As healthcare shifts to neighbourhood teams, we can embed psychological approaches in these teams. This includes ensuring psychological approaches to rehabilitation, helping patients change behaviours to improve health, and ensuring more people receive effective psychological therapies.
2. Leading Digital Interventions: Psychological professionals are already leaders in digital therapies. We can expand the use of proven digital therapies and ensure new technologies, like AI-supported therapies, are effective and safe. Digital tools can also improve services, reduce administrative work for staff, freeing up time for clinical care and staff development. An early impact will be the ability to self-refer to NHS Talking Therapies using the NHS app.
3. Supporting Patient-Reported Outcomes: The plan, radically, commits to publishing patient-reported outcomes and experiences universally by 2029. This is beneficial for psychological healthcare, as it can show the effectiveness of psychological interventions. Demonstrating positive outcomes can attract more investment. Where measuring outcomes is challenging, we can use our expertise to develop meaningful metrics.

The psychological professions have much to offer in implementing this plan. The commitment to "Staff Treatment Hubs" with a mental health focus and developing "Modern Service Frameworks" for key pathways like mental health are additional important commitments that we can engage with. However, there will also be challenges:

• Avoiding Competition: We must remain united as psychological professionals within the broader healthcare workforce. We can make a bigger impact together.
• Being Proactive: We need to advocate actively for psychological healthcare and not wait to be invited to discussions.
• Embracing Change: Radical changes are necessary for a sustainable NHS. We must be part of driving this change to ensure it serves people well.

We need many voices to ensure the success of the 10 Year Health Plan. Partnering with Experts by Experience and using the Psychological Professions Networks to speak in a united way will help us move forward together. Psychological professionals can bring vital expertise to help achieve the plan's goals, and in doing so move closer to making all health and care psychological.