A group of local communities across England will have the opportunity to become part of the first wave of areas testing a new funding model approach to neighbourhood health, using innovative finance to help create more joined-up, preventative care and support closer to people’s homes.
The £1.5m initiative could help turbo-charge the government’s plans for a neighbourhood health service with care shifting from hospitals into local communities. As well as tackling health inequalities, the programme would also support wider regeneration and community resilience efforts. The programme will place a particular focus on improving support for communities facing the greatest barriers to accessing care and the poorest health outcomes.
Applications to join the Trailblazer programme will be open to the 43 sites which were announced last year under the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme, as part of government roll out of new neighbourhood health services.
Neighbourhoods can apply from 29th June to 17th July at:
www.socialfinance.org.uk/impact/trailblazer
The £1.5m initiative could help turbo-charge the government’s plans for a neighbourhood health service with care shifting from hospitals into local communities. As well as tackling health inequalities, the programme would also support wider regeneration and community resilience efforts. The programme will place a particular focus on improving support for communities facing the greatest barriers to accessing care and the poorest health outcomes.
Applications to join the Trailblazer programme will be open to the 43 sites which were announced last year under the National Neighbourhood Health Implementation Programme, as part of government roll out of new neighbourhood health services.
Neighbourhoods can apply from 29th June to 17th July at:
www.socialfinance.org.uk/impact/trailblazer
Identifying the opportunity
Current funding models can leave people stuck in a cycle of reactive, hospital-based treatment, particularly those living with cancer and other long-term conditions who often need support that goes beyond clinical care alone.In contrast, this new approach focuses on long-term, preventative and community-based support, helping create more joined-up care that is designed around people’s lives and delivered closer to home.
Last year, West Herts in partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support and Social Finance launched a pioneering collaboration that leverages around £10 million of social investment to help redesign care. Social investment is a mechanism used to fund preventative, community-based healthcare services using upfront capital from social investors, which the NHS only repays if the service successfully achieves specific, pre-agreed health outcomes.
By focusing on communities facing the poorest outcomes and greatest barriers to care, the Trailblazer Programme also aims to help tackle health inequalities and build more sustainable models of neighbourhood health and a scalable model for neighbourhood health that could be replicated nationally.
The Trailblazer programme
The Trailblazer programme will effectively replicate structural features of this model and prepare the selected sites to be ready for social investment. That means ensuring they have built new ways of working, governance and delivery mechanisms to deliver these localised services, focussed on their place context.West Herts will act as a ‘mentor’ to the Trailblazer sites, offering support and practical advice. Macmillan Cancer Support and Social Finance will provide expert financial and technical support to help local health and care systems build the skills, confidence and culture needed to attract and use finance and impact investment to improve community-based care.
As part of its wider commitment to invest £250 million in neighbourhood health across the UK over the next three to five years, Macmillan intends to be the first to invest in several of the Trailblazer sites at the end of the nine-month programme.
A key part of model development and selection will be market engagement with potential social investors. The expectation is that the sites will receive impact investment from April 2027.
Learning from the programme will be used to produce playbooks and frameworks for a future wider national rollout, helping inform the future development of neighbourhood health services, as well as wider applicability for how public services can effectively partner with impact capital.
Satvir Kaur MP, Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office, said:
“To achieve real national renewal, we have to do government differently. By leveraging our newly launched Office for the Impact Economy, this Trailblazer programme will empower local communities to build innovative partnerships and deliver on the priorities that matter most to them."
“Through this model, we are ensuring that every pound of public funding goes further, enabling local people to work hand-in-hand with impact capital to create long-term, preventative healthcare built fundamentally around people's lives.”
Minister of State for Care Stephen Kinnock said:
“Through neighbourhood health, we are fundamentally changing how healthcare is delivered– making sure people have access to the vital care they need right on their doorstep.
“These trailblazer sites will turbocharge our mission, by bringing services focused on prevention, tackling inequalities and improving health outcomes together under one roof.
“The programme will pave the way for other neighbourhood health services, as we take the best of the NHS to the rest of the health service, boosting the wellbeing of communities up and down the country.”
Toby Hyde, Managing Director of the South West Hertfordshire Health & Care Partnership, said:
“By working in close partnership with a wide range of partners in Hertfordshire, we’ve already rolled out a new model for providing joined up, expert care for older people with complex health needs – on their doorstep and tailored to their specific needs. It’s early days but the early results have been very positive.
“We now want to encourage other NHS Trusts and local community organisations to consider becoming a Trailblazer site and attract social investment to deliver meaningful change within their local areas”
Gemma Peters, Chief Executive at Macmillan Cancer Support, said:
“Cancer isn’t fair and too often, cancer care isn’t either. Too many people living with cancer and other long-term conditions are navigating fragmented systems that weren’t designed around their lives.
“At Macmillan, our mission is to make care fairer for everyone from diagnosis, through treatment and beyond so every person can get the support they need. The Trailblazers programme is an exciting opportunity to show how to revolutionise healthcare. It will demonstrate how to bring care closer to home, and reshape it around people and their communities – providing a roadmap for long-term, sustainable investment in neighbourhood health.”
Caroline Gadd, Chief Executive of Social Finance, said:
“Delivering neighbourhood health is crucial to improving health and care for communities, as well as helping the NHS become financially sustainable. At Social Finance we work in partnership to deploy impact capital to drive change at a system level and I am delighted to see this Government commitment to enabling social investment to back outcomes in health.
“What is most exciting is not just the first wave of six sites, but what comes next and the potential to transform how we invest in health in the future.”
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