F or Turning Point, as a long-established provider not just of recovery services but also of mental health, learning disabilities, sexual health and smoking prevention services, the new NHS approach is a welcome reflection of our community’ s needs. In 2021 the Dame Carol Black report set out the ways in which the treatment and recovery system was‘ not fit for purpose and urgently needs repair’. The report triggered the process of reform and investment in the From harm to hope 10 year drug plan that we’ re now seeing implemented in our services.
|
The NHS is having a similar moment. Lord Darzi’ s 2024 Independent investigation of the NHS in England report found the same sorts of issues – long waiting lists, demotivated staff and outcomes lagging behind those of other countries. The NHS was in‘ critical condition’, he said, and must‘ reform or die’. This then led to the development of the 2025 NHS 10 year health plan, Fit for the future.
The plan identifies that the NHS has evolved into an organisation that’ s‘ hospital-centric, detached from communities and organises its care into multiple, fragmented silos’. Its solution is that by 2035 the NHS will transform from‘ only’
|
being a national service to also become a‘ neighbourhood health service’ – with care provided as locally as possible to people in their homes and communities as well as hospital, and with a focus on accessible, integrated and preventative care.
AMBITION TO REALITY To turn this from ambition into reality, the NHS plan encourages integration of the approach with local areas’ preexisting health and wellbeing plans and homelessness strategies, as well as joining up with the Joint Combatting Drug Partnerships that oversee local recovery services.
|
So what will be the implications for us in recovery services? Implementing the NHS plan will have to mean a resetting of the relationship between the NHS and recovery services, as it indicates an intention to shift the way in which power and resources are distributed. It will mean cultural change in the NHS that could bring advantages to the people who use our services, as the NHS moves beyond a topdown approach and commits to increased co-design of services as well as realising that health outcomes can only be achieved by coming into communities and working more closely with services like ours.
JellyPics
|