Neighbourhood Health Academy Live Session:
How Do We Measure Neighbourhood Health?
An interactive online session. Thursday 11th November, 1pm to 2pm. Free to attend.
Free To Join
Intro
IEveryone agrees neighbourhood health needs to show it’s making a difference. Far fewer agree on how. There are many excellent tools out there, but deciding which is right for you can be tricky.
The NHS already has a way of measuring. It grew up around diagnosis and treatment, and it produces numbers that travel upwards to meet national targets. That’s useful, but for neighbourhood health it misses so much.
Why this session, and why now?
So much now rests on measurement. Money is tight, and commissioners need to show every pound is well spent. The Neighbourhood Health Framework sets national targets on admissions, access and waiting times to 2029. Services collect activity data, outcome scores, surveys and stories. Analysts are building dashboards and scorecards.
And more and more of these measures are being written into contracts. The new neighbourhood contracts are set to link money to reducing emergency admissions. Every new initiative is being asked for its KPIs. Once a measure is in a contract, it doesn’t just describe the work. It decides it.
Get the measures wrong and you can end up hitting the target while missing the point.
What’s the problem with how we measure?
1. Measures shape who gets seen.
We’ve seen it in mental health: when services are judged on results, the easier cases get seen, the most unwell end up in hospital, and a missing middle falls between the two. They don’t fit the measures, so they don’t count.
2. Crisis is easy to count. Prevention isn’t.
A hospital admission leaves a record. The neighbour who noticed something was wrong doesn’t. When prevention works, nothing happens, and it’s very hard to count something that didn’t happen.
3. We measure the work as imagined, not the work as done.
On paper, a care plan gets agreed, a referral gets made, a box gets ticked. In reality, a practitioner is chasing housing, untangling money worries and earning enough trust that someone comes back next time. And the work that needs doing but that nobody is contracted to do doesn’t get measured at all.
Meanwhile, communities and voluntary sector partners often see changes that never show up in any return.
Is there a right way to measure neighbourhood health?
Probably not one. What works for a GP practice, a council or a community group can be very different, and what works in one neighbourhood may mean little in the next. The real question is how you find what’s right for you: what you need to know, who can act on it, and what it might miss.
This session won’t tell you there’s one right way. It’s about helping you decide better for yourself.
Share how you measure
We’re inviting people to describe how they measure neighbourhood health in their own work, in five minutes or a couple of slides. Whether your approach is working or not, we’d love to hear what it’s good at and where it struggles. It doesn’t need to be polished.
If you’d like to share yours, get in touch at JPCrofton@Gmail.com before 2nd November
The Details:
Wednesday 11h November, 1-2pm, 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.
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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.
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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.