Pilot areas chosen for new health service model

Wes Streeting, the Health and Social Care Secretary, said the new model would help rebuild the NHS

Several areas in the East of England have been chosen to pilot the government's new neighbourhood health service.

Parts of Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Peterborough, Essex, Hertfordshire and Suffolk have been selected to take part in the new £10m model, which aims to shift care out of hospitals and into the community.

Each area would be led by a local programme director working with GPs, nurses, social care workers, pharmacists and voluntary organisations, to better direct patients and limit A&E visits.

Dr Neil Modha, a GP at Thistlemoor medical centre in Peterborough, said it was "really good news" and would be beneficial to the area.

The government said it would oversee the rollout across 43 places in England.

In the eastern region, they include:

• Buckinghamshire (North, High Wycombe, Marlow Beaconsfield)

• Fenland, Peterborough and East, Peterborough

• Ipswich and East Suffolk

• North East Essex

• South and West Hertfordshire (Dacorum and Hertsmere)

• West Essex

• West Suffolk

The new network will initially focus on supporting people with long term conditions such as diabetes, arthritis, angina, high blood pressure, MS and epilepsy.

As the programme grows, it plans to expand to support other patients.

It aims to target areas that have the lowest life expectancy and longest waits for care.

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said: "Neighbourhood health services fundamentally reimagine how the NHS works – bringing care closer to home while helping to tackle this nation's shameful health inequalities."

Dr Modha, who is also a co-chair of the North Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Care Partnership, said currently there were issues for patients "even in affluent areas".

Dr Neil Modha said the plan was about "trying our hardest not to turn people away"

"For our patients, a lot of them are poor and deprived… going to hospitals, people having to pay for parking are all barriers for people to receive care," he said.

"It's going to be really focused on people working together… I hope for people's families, people's relatives and loved ones that care will be better joined up."

Nick Hulme, chief executive of East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT), told the BBC during the summer that NHS services were struggling, adding it was essential that the government's new 10-year plan would work.

"We can see full hospitals up and down the country, sadly, with patients still waiting in the corridors," he said.