How can we ensure that charities and community groups have the funding they need to make the Neighbourhood Health Service a reality?
Connecting the NHS with charities and community groups is at the heart of the Government’s plan for the health system. But at a time where charitable funding and public finances are under growing pressure, how do we ensure that these groups can play a full part in the neighbourhood health service?
Through social prescribing, millions of people have been connected to community-based support for their health and wellbeing since 2019 – for example, to local support groups for mental health, music-based activities for people living with dementia, or exercise sessions to help prevent diabetes.
But these projects are usually not funded through the NHS. Instead, their funding often comes from a range of sources, and it is often short-term and fragmented. This makes it difficult for charities and voluntary organisations to keep delivering effective programmes.
That is why we are proposing a National Community Health Wellbeing Fund. Worth £1 billion over 10 years, the fund would bring together contributions from the public, philanthropic and private sectors, and provide vital long-term funding for community groups and organisations - key to tackling loneliness, reducing health inequalities and improving people’s health.
We launched our proposals in 2024, with the publication of Envisaging a Social Prescribing Fund. The report was developed with more than 100 organisations – from national funders to NHS Integrated Care Boards to local charities - who strongly supported the vision it presented.
Since then, we have worked with Social Finance and seven ‘Early Adopter’ Integrated Care Boards, as well as other experts and organisations, to further develop our plans. We have renamed the fund The National Community Health and Wellbeing Fund – to reflect the fact that it goes beyond social prescribing and can enable the fundamental shifts in the NHS 10 Year Plan.
It can do this by:
- Creating a way of pooling funding from a range of sources – including funding from the NHS, Government, charitable trusts and foundations, lotteries and local businesses.
- Giving communities more power and control over what is delivered in their neighbourhoods.
- Promoting partnership-based approaches that bring together organisations – linking the health system, local government, charities, funders, and organisations spanning arts, sports and leisure and the natural environment, among others.
The fund’s principles have been translated into a prospective delivery model, including a detailed assurance-based governance framework and a structured funding mechanism. We have also established a National Centre for Social Prescribing Data and Analysis with University College London, which will provide expertise around data and evidence.
We envisage the fund enabling investment into local areas from 2026, beginning in the areas covered by the Early Adopter sites before scaling up nationally by 2030.
Read Envisaging a Social Prescribing Fund
