The UK Government’s 10-Year Health Plan for England has been published. It’s a blueprint to make the NHS more accessible, digitally enabled, community-driven and focused on prevention, it reflects many long-standing ambitions.
The ambition is welcome, its built on public and professional engagement and sets out to address the conclusions of Lord Darzi’s investigation into a health service ‘at breaking point’. But what’s not in the plan may be just as important as what is.
A compelling vision, with concerns
The plan paints a compelling vision, but lacks clarity on implementation, investment and infrastructure. For an industry that’s ready to partner, innovate and deliver, the message is mixed. Life sciences receive support for genomics, a focus on making precision medicine a reality and plans to accelerate clinical trials.
A single national formulary and expansion of NICE’s technology appraisal process to cover devices, diagnostics and digital products are also due, alongside expanding the role life sciences and technology companies can play in service delivery.
But as Richard Torbett, Chief Executive, ABPI rightly points out, there’s no commitment to increasing NHS investment in medicines at a time when industry is grappling with VPAG, which is impacting investment in R&D and the UK’s attractiveness as a launch market for new medicines. “The UK has viewed innovation as a cost to be avoided rather than an investment that can improve outcomes and productivity.”
It’s a warning that matters. The UK now spends less on medicines than almost all its international peers, and access to new treatments is falling behind. Added to that the single national formulary which will be responsible for sequencing products based on clinical and cost effectiveness, and the pharma landscape becomes increasingly difficult, and patient and clinician choice gets squeezed.
If the 10-year plan is focused on improving outcomes and bending the demand and cost curves through prevention, pharmaceutical innovation must be part of the solution.
A plan for patients
There’s a promise to put power in patients’ hands through digital tools, transparency and patient experience incentives including a trial where patients are given a say on whether the full payment for the costs of their care should be released to the provider. That’s bold. But many of the communities that need better care are digitally excluded, and underrepresented, will health apps or AI improve their care?
For women’s health – a priority for Uniphar Commercial and the Rockmy women’s health education and wellness platform, the signals are mixed.
The shift to neighbourhood health centres offers real potential to integrate services, bring care closer to homes and build trust. But clinicians we work with raised concerns that women’s health hubs, already designed to bring women’s healthcare closer to the community, risk being absorbed, diluted or dropped.
The Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology called this out in their comment statement: “The Government must continue central support for the women’s health hub model and commit to recurrent funding and support to ensure every ICB can deliver sustainable, accessible and joined-up services across a woman’s life course. This will support Government ambitions to deliver more care in communities, prevent ill health, and support economic growth.”
The plan sets out to establish neighbourhood health centres in every community, beginning with places where healthy life expectancy is the lowest. Which is welcomed for underserved communities, where women’s life expectancy is falling and years lived in poor health are rising. But more needs to be known on resourcing and support for GPs as well as funding.
Other areas of women’s health mentioned include:
- Free emergency contraception from pharmacies by end of 2025.
- Expanded HPV vaccine access and self-sampling kits for cervical screening.
- Work to improve maternity care.
The frontline reality
As Simon Nicholson, Director of Customer Engagement at Uniphar Commercial, put it: “All the key components of the plan are logical – though they don’t differ from policy aspirations seen expressed by successive governments. Now digitisation of healthcare is finally possible, we need to see how those tools alongside system reforms can genuinely reduce burden, improve productivity and help address the capacity crisis, increasing loss of morale and trust for both HCPs and patients.”
Because without improving the day-to-day reality for overstretched healthcare professionals the rest of the plan risks stalling.
What’s next?
The plan is full of great intentions but those intentions need to deliver. That takes:
- Strategic investment in innovation, including a fair share of NHS spend on medicines.
- Clarity on how reforms like the neighbourhood health model will protect and prioritise women’s health.
- Support for frontline HCPs through usable technology, meaningful autonomy and better workplace culture.
This is a moment of opportunity and risk. Uniphar Commercial will continue to work alongside pharma, frontline clinicians and digital partners to help bridge the gap between national ambition and everyday impact.
Because fixing the NHS isn’t just about what’s in the plan. It’s about what gets delivered.
Sources
https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/long-reads/ten-year-health-plan-explained
https://www.abpi.org.uk/media/news/2025/july/abpi-response-to-nhs-10-year-health-plan/
https://www.abpi.org.uk/media/blogs/2025/march/understanding-nhs-medicines-spending-in-england/
https://www.abpi.org.uk/value-and-access/uk-medicine-pricing/voluntary-scheme-on-branded-medicines/
https://www.rcgp.org.uk/representing-you/policy-areas/10-year-health-plan
