Neighbourhood Health Academy Live Session:
How Can Your Business Case Fit the New NHS Landscape of Neighbourhood Health?
An interactive online session. Thursday 8th October, 12pm to 1pm. Free to attend.
Free To Join
Intro
If you work in neighbourhood health, sooner or later you will have to ask somebody for money. A business case is how our healthcare system understands the value of what you do.
But most NHS business cases are written as if the world is flat. The same templates. The same logic, the same structure, the same argument, wherever it lands.
That is not the fault of the people writing them. NHS templates were built for a centralised system, one where variation is treated as a defect and best practice is assumed to be the same everywhere. If the model has already been decided nationally, a business case is a compliance document. You show you can deliver the agreed thing, affordably, to a committee that already knows what good looks like.
Neighbourhood health has changed that ground completely. A business case becomes the place where you about how you can show how you can change the health of you local population and works for the system as a whole.
Why this session, and why now?
Neighbourhood health is moving out of policy and into contracts. That means money, and in the NHS money means business cases. And under the proposed models this is not one business case at system level. It is a cascade, from Integrated Health Organisations through multi-neighbourhood providers and down to individual practices and their partners. The business cases and the contracts have to be put in place. To get resources where they need to go.
So a lot of people are about to write one. Some have never written one before. Others have done it and found the process opaque, slow and exhausting.
The document itself is no longer the hard part. Thanks to AI, anyone can produce a competent business case in minutes. What is scarce is understanding the environment and the people you are writing for, and being willing to write differently for different places.
And there is a cost to getting it wrong. In the NHS it is not unusual to spend twelve months or more jumping through business case hoops only to get to a no.
What has actually changed?
Three big changes have reshaped the ground underneath the business case process.
1. Strategic commissioning has changed who decides, and what they are deciding about.
ICBs are being redefined as strategic commissioners, whilst Integrated Health Organisations shift decision making power from commissioners to providers, with outcome based contracting intended to become the norm within three years. Your case is no longer judged against the cost of your service. It is judged against every other thing the same money could do for that population.
2. Neighbourhood health changes what NHS organisations are for.
A trust that becomes a host or an IHO is not only a provider any more, it is buying things. General practice inside a single neighbourhood provider is not only delivering to a list, it is holding population responsibility. Different job, different pressures, and a different thing needed from your business case. Everybody says they want to reduce demand, but to a hospital that means admissions and bed days, and to a GP it means appointments and continuity. Same words, opposite meaning.
3. There is no map to this territory, and almost everyone deciding is doing it for the first time.
Commissioning is a profession, and with 50 neighbourhoods on average per ICB and a much smaller professional commissioning workforce spread thinly, that capacity does not exist at neighbourhood scale. Most NHS organisations are about to become commissioners of local services, and nobody yet knows what good looks like.
That last one is usually described as a problem. It is also the opportunity. If there is no agreed answer, a well argued business case does not just compete for money. It helps decide what the answer is going to be.
You can read the full argument here: Neighbourhood Health Has Changed The NHS Landscape. So Don’t Write Business Cases That Assume The World Is Flat
What happens on the day?
A short opening to set out the new landscape, then most of the hour in open discussion.
We will look at who is actually buying and what each of them is trying to solve, why the same piece of work can be obviously fundable in one place and invisible a mile away, what the evidence genuinely supports and what it does not, and how to work out early whether a case is worth writing at all.
Then the floor is open. Bring your questions, your frustrations and something real you are trying to get funded. Some of the most useful material in these sessions comes from people describing what actually happened last time, and where it broke.
We will try and map and make sense of this new landscape together.
Expect to explore the difficult questions that needs answering. Who really decides? What happens when reduced admissions do not release any cash, we cant just stop and pack up are bags surely? How do you make a case for work whose value is hard to measure? How do small organisations and providers make this work for them?
The Details:
Wednesday 8th October, 12-1pm, online via Zoom. Register below and we will send your joining link straight to your inbox.
Put your name down and we will send the Zoom link to your inbox.
Free To Join
Join The NeighBourHood Health Academy
Who it is for?
Anyone starting or involved with neighbourhood health work:
NHS leaders, VCSE organisations, local authority colleagues, GPs and practice teams, community health workers, commissioners and innovators who are figuring it out as they go.
You do not need to have the answers. You just need to be working on the questions.
Blog: Advancing Neighbourhood Health In Our Communities.
What Our Survey Reveals About What Neighbourhood Leaders Health Really Think
What do people building neighbourhood health really believe? Our survey reveals a drive for innovation, collaboration and credible evaluation in a fragmented system.
How Do We Stop the Blame Game in the NHS And Will It Ruin Our Future if We Don’t?
The NHS cannot build a successful future on a platform of fear. A culture of blame and scapegoating is driving bureaucracy, stifling innovation, and eroding psychological safety. If we do not replace blame with trust and system learning, we risk locking the NHS into the past.
Introducing The Neighbourhood Health Academy: Applications Open!
Introducing A new practitioner-led learning community for people working in neighbourhood health.
Launching in February, the Neighbourhood Health Academy brings together clinicians, commissioners and system partners to learn, share and develop credible neighbourhood models grounded in real-world practice. Applications are now open.
What Are The Key Differences Between Local Government and NHS Approaches To The New Neighbourhood Health Initiatives?
A practical explainer of the new neighbourhood health initiatives in England. Understand how NHS and local government approaches differ, where they align, and why this matters for practitioners and partners.
Should I Make a Big Change in My Career or Not? A Guide To Help You Discover Your Future Career Path.
Feeling stuck or overwhelmed by big career decisions? Try the Cynefin Framework to guide your thinking, a powerful tool to clarify your options. Discover how to confidently tackle uncertainty, manage risks, and unlock new career paths. It’s your practical guide to turning career anxiety into actionable opportunity
NHS Reform What Might Be The Future of Shape the NHS? The 3 Layered Tree & The Cynefin Framework
What shape will the future NHS take? Emerging reforms point towards a ‘Layered Tree’ model: Intriguingly, this aligns with the Cynefin framework, providing clear guidance for leadership and decision-making at each layer. But will this design genuinely solve the NHS’s persistent problems, or could it create new challenges?
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.
-
Shared learning from real neighbourhood work
-
Discussion of implementation challenges (governance, workforce, evaluation, collaboration, technology)
-
Practitioner led working groups on specific topics
-
Reflection on evidence, measurement, and improvement approaches
-
Honest discussion of uncertainty and trade-offs
Who is it not for?
This community is not intended for:
-
Sales, marketing, or lead generation
-
Generic wellbeing or lifestyle content
-
Political ideological positions
-
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
-
Understand who is joining and their context
-
Keep the community relevant and psychologically safe
-
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.