Primary Care: Huntingdon
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to establish new primary healthcare facilities in Huntingdon constituency through the neighbourhood health service programme.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock
At the Autumn Budget, we announced our commitment to delivering up to 250 Neighbourhood Health Centres (NHCs) by 2035, with around 120 centres in place by 2030.
As part of this commitment, we recently announced Wave 1 of our NHC schemes, with 27 sites across England selected to bring care closer to home 12 hours a day, six days a week, backed by £50 million. To support delivery nationally, we have now published the Neighbourhood health centre guidance for regions and integrated care boards and the Neighbourhood health centres: design and performance specification. These documents have been developed in close collaboration with colleagues across government, and together, they support regions and integrated care boards (ICBs) to further develop their neighbourhood health estate strategies and pipelines.
Nationwide coverage will take time, but we will start in the areas of greatest need where healthy life expectancy is lowest including rural towns and communities with higher deprivation levels and delivering healthcare closer to home for those that need it the most.
Wave 1 is just the beginning. We will build on this momentum to enable us to remain on track for our ambitious timetable to deliver new build NHCs by 2030.
We are supporting regions and ICBs to develop neighbourhood health estates strategies and future pipelines ahead of the 28 May NHC proposal deadline and encourage MPs to engage with their ICBs ahead of this deadline.
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