HEALTH and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting convened 300 people from every region across the country – including 21 patients and 7 healthcare staff from the North West – at a national summit on:- Friday, 4 April 2025 to have their final say on how to rebuild the NHS. 

The summit, held in Earl’s Court in London, marked the culmination of the biggest national conversation in the NHS’ history, which has seen almost 200,000 contributions. These include portal ideas submitted and attendances at deliberative events with people across the country sharing their experiences, views and ideas for fixing the health service. 

This comes ahead of the government publishing its landmark 10 Year Health Plan which will deliver 3 shifts in healthcare, moving from hospital to community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention.   

A total of 28 people from the North West were involved in debating the future of the NHS and testing emerging policy ideas that will feature in the 10 Year Health Plan, having previously attended 1 of the regional roadshow events held since October. 

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting said:-  "To save what we love about the NHS, we must change it – but this isn’t something I can do alone. That’s why we launched the biggest national conversation in the history of the NHS, to gather views from thousands of staff and patients including from the North West who’ve seen the best and worst of our health service. This summit is the culmination of this nationwide exercise and a final opportunity to shape the 10 Year Health Plan which will revolutionise care for patients. Together, we can turn the NHS around and build a health service fit for the future as part of our Plan for Change.” 

In total, 200 members of the public and 100 health and care staff who work in acute, primary, community, social and mental health care attended the summit.  

With the Change NHS online survey set to close soon, the Health and Social Care Secretary is urging anyone who has not yet contributed to share their views and experiences as soon as possible at change.nhs.uk. 

Rupesh Bagdai, Quality and Governance Director at Primary Eyecare, Cheshire and Merseyside said:- “The shift from hospital to community will be another big factor as well. I think the big challenge for the NHS is how do we deliver that? And it'll be exciting to see that change over the decade ahead of us and how we can be involved in helping that change occur. So, I like the vision of the person-centred approach that's been displayed today. Delivering care in different ways to different people will meet the individual's needs.”

Since its launch last October, around 1.75 million separate visits have been made to the Change.NHS site to date and almost 200,000 contributions, including public and staff views, experiences, ideas and priorities.

Over 17,000 people joined a community-led event, half of whom were people whose voices are too often under-represented in government consultations. Over 14,000 ideas have been submitted on the Change.NHS site, and around 4,000 staff and 700 members of the public engaged through online workshops and deliberative events. Approximately 1,600 responses have been submitted from partner organisations including charities and think tanks. 

All ideas will be carefully considered as part of the 10 Year Health Plan to better understand the priorities of the public, patients and people working in health and care and how we deliver the 3 shifts:- 
 

• From hospital to community:- a new neighbourhood health service, which will be closer to homes and communities, where patients will be able to see family doctors, district nurses, care workers and other clinicians all under the same roof.   

• From analogue to digital:- patients will be put in control of their own medical history by bringing together a single patient record and summarising patient health information in 1 place - the NHS App – while harnessing the power of transformative AI to speed up diagnosis and treatment for a range of diseases. 

• From sickness to prevention:- aim to shorten the amount of time people spend in ill-health and prevent more illnesses before they happen by investing in cancer services, rolling out life-saving health checks in workplaces, tackling childhood obesity and ensuring the 1st smoke-free generation.