Launching Soon: A Community For Neighbourhood Health Learning and Support:
Join The Neighbourhood Health Academy.
A Community To Share Learning & Upskill Neighbourhood Health Professionals: connecting problems with solutions.
Free To Join
Clinically Informed Practice.
Science Led Approaches.
Innovation & Future Focused.
Connect and Learn.
Why Join Our Neighbourhood Health Academy?
Tailored Support To Your Needs
Connecting Your Problems With Solutions
Focus On Patient Centred Care
Commissioning & Governance Support
Insightful Measurement & Evaluation
Shared Learning & Continuous Improvement
Neighbourhood Health: It is Time To Shape The Future!
- The NHS is at the edge, teetering on the precipice of survival, as it struggles to meet the needs of our population, rising demand, increasingly complexity and communities experiencing growing physical and mental health challenges, with people often struggling to get the support they require.
- Neighbourhood health services are leading the way in responding to these challenges by offering more relational, preventative, and locally grounded care. However, while the intention is clear, there is far less clarity on how we do it: How should these services be designed, implemented, and adapted to different local contexts? What skills we need and how do we use them for maximum impact.
- Much of this work has been left to local teams, asked to answer difficult questions such as: How to manage these services? How are they governed? What should be funded? How can different people and organisations work effectively together? How best to use technology? How do we allocate our resources for the biggest impact? How do we evaluate and improve performance? Whilst also better understanding anticipating the needs of our population and improving outcomes.
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We are at a critical time as these services are shaped and formed, the decisions we make now will shape the future of how these services for years to come. Shaping the future of the NHS and the health of our society.
The Neighbourhood Health Academy is a community that is being established to bring people together: to share challenges, learn from one another, build a credible evidence base, and explore practical, human, and relational approaches to neighbourhood health that respond to the real needs of communities: so that we can transform our neighbourhood’s health together.
The Neighbourhood Health Academy
Vs
Traditional NHS Approaches
“We cannot rely on the old model of government and health professionals telling people what to do. Rather, we must empower people to take control of their own health. We must give people the ability to do more for themselves, normalising self-care instead of defaulting to the NHS for every health need.”
(Professor John Deanfield)
Bridging The Gap Between Healthcare & Community
The most damaging gap in our health system is not between services, but between clinical care and the communities where health is actually created.
We cannot treat our way out of the challenges we face. Rising demand, long term conditions, mental health, and widening inequalities are shaped upstream of clinics and hospitals. The health system is left responding late, expensively, and repeatedly to problems that could have been addressed earlier.
This community is about helping you to building neighbourhood health approaches that connect clinical pathways with community based support.
We want to help you blend clinical expertise with local knowledge; where prevention, early support, and ongoing care can be woven together; and where trust, continuity, and relationships make a practical difference.
Yet bridging this gap is difficult. Clinical and community worlds often operate with different languages, incentives, evidence standards, and ways of working. Without deliberate effort, they risk talking past one another whilst being pulled apart by organisations with different priorities.
The Neighbourhood Health Academy Community exists to help bridge that gap: creating a space where neighbourhood health professionals can work across clinical and community boundaries, share learning, and develop approaches that are both clinically credible and genuinely rooted in patients needs, and the realities of people’s lives.
Who is The NeighbourHood Health Academy For?
We Aim to Collaborate With:
- Neighbourhood and Place Based Managers
- Clinicians
- Commissioners
- VCSE Organisations.
- Local Authorities
- Technology Companies Supporting Neighbourhoods
- Healthcare Organisations
Why Such a Wide Range?
By having diverse people and groups involved we increase the capability of everyone. It enables a much more broader range of interactions fostering new ideas and innovation.
This enables us to better adapt to the diverse range of needs of our communities.
Next Steps
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Join The Neighbourhood Health Academy.
Are you involved in Neighbourhood Health? We have building a community just for you!
It's a space to share, learn and collaborate together to improve people's lives: supporting people's every day physical and mental health, and preventing sickness.
Please register your interest and we will get in touch.
Tailored Support To Your Needs.
Connecting Your Problems With Solutions.
Focus On Delivering Patient Centred Care.
Commisioning & Governance Support.
Insightful Measurement & Evaluation.
Platform For Shared Learning and Continuous Improvement.
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Neighbourhood Health Community
Frequently Asked Questions
No fees, no commitment. Let’s learn how we can work together.
What do you mean by Neighbourhood Health?
Neighbourhood health refers to organising health and care around smaller, local populations, with a strong emphasis on relationships, prevention, and coordination across services.
It brings together clinical care, community-based support, and local knowledge to respond to people’s needs earlier and more holistically. With a particular emphasis on managing those with complex, long-term, or multiple needs as well as reducing health inequalities in local populations.
Neighbourhood health is not a single model. It looks different in different places and must be shaped by local context.
How is Neighbourhood Health different from traditional NHS care?
Traditional NHS care is largely organised around acute (hospital) clinical pathways and clinical services. With patients diagnosed treated, escalated and exchanged between healthcare providers based on clinical assessments. It is predominantly a transactional model of healthcare with single lines of accountability aimed at processing patients efficiently.
Neighbourhood health instead focuses on place, relationships, and coordination across boundaries, connecting clinical pathways with community support, prevention, and ongoing care. It aims to respond earlier, reduce fragmentation, and support people over time rather than episodically.
Both are necessary. Neighbourhood health is an enhancement of clinical care, it does not replace it.
Why is Neighbourhood Health so important right now?
Demand, complexity, and inequality are rising faster than the NHS system can respond, through clinical care alone, resulting in waiting lists and delayed provision of healthcare.
There is recognition that we cannot treat our way out of current challenges. Without stronger local approaches that connect healthcare with community needs, the system risks remaining reactive, expensive, and overstretched.
Neighbourhood health is still forming. Decisions made now about models, governance, measurement and how services are provided and to whom, will shape the NHS and our society for years to come.
Are You Advocating For Natural Or Alternative Remedies Over Traditional Healthcare?
Absolutely not, we follow the advice of qualified medical experts first and foremost.
We do not endorse ever going against clinical advice. If there is a medical question we very strongly recommend speaking to a fully qualified clinician for expert advice and following it.
If in doubt call NHS 111 or see your GP.
What is this community?
This is an online, practitioner led learning community for people working on neighbourhood health.
It provides a space to share challenges, compare approaches, discuss evidence, and reflect on real world implementation, particularly where work spans clinical and community settings.
It is designed to support learning and capability building, not to prescribe solutions.
Are You Affiliated With The NHS
We are not an NHS body or a registered medical provider. We work independently of the NHS. If you are an NHS organisation contact and we will be happy to discuss if and how we can work together.
What does the community actually do?
The community supports:
- Relection on real world practical challenges of delivering neighbourhood health.
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Shared learning from real neighbourhood work
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Discussion of implementation challenges (governance, workforce, evaluation, collaboration, technology)
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Practitioner led working groups on specific topics
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Reflection on evidence, measurement, and improvement approaches
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Honest discussion of uncertainty and trade-offs
Who is it not for?
This community is not intended for:
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Sales, marketing, or lead generation
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Generic wellbeing or lifestyle content
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Political ideological positions
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Spaces focused on performance management or inspection
Is the community free to join?
Yes. There is currently no cost to join.
Why do I need to complete a quiz to join?
The short quiz helps us:
- Helps to design the community around members needs
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Understand who is joining and their context
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Keep the community relevant and psychologically safe
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Avoid sales activity and misalignment
It takes around five minutes and helps protect the quality of the space for everyone.
How do I join?
You can apply by completing the short quiz linked on this page. Applications are reviewed regularly, and we respond personally.