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NHS

10 Year Health Plan, 2025 to 2035

The choice for the NHS is stark: reform or die
The 10 Year Health Plan for England, July 2025

10 Year Health Plan

The 10 Year Health Plan, published in July 2025, sets out to reinvent the NHS in England through three shifts, supported by a new operating model, league tables, a new workforce model, innovation, and a new approach to its finances. It merges NHS England into the Department of Health and Social Care, and NHS England’s planning framework sets targets for each year to March 2029.

From hospital to community

The plan moves care into local teams, a Neighbourhood Health Service, so hospitals can focus on specialist care.

  1. 1.Neighbourhood health centres. Set up a neighbourhood health centre in every community, starting where healthy life expectancy is lowest, open at least 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.
  2. 2.Same-day GP appointments. End the 8am scramble with thousands more GPs and online advice in the NHS App, so people who need one get a same-day GP appointment.
  3. 3.Waits and outpatients. Restore the standard of 92% of patients starting planned treatment within 18 weeks, end corridor care, and end hospital outpatients as we know it by 2035.

The first 27 neighbourhood health centres, backed by up to £50 million, are to open by 2027, of the 250 pledged by 2035.

65.3% of patients were waiting under 18 weeks in March 2026, meeting that month’s target, and the waiting list fell to 7.11 million, its lowest in three and a half years.

Care should happen as locally as it can

The plan sets one rule for where care happens: as locally as it can, digitally by default, in a patient’s home if possible, in a neighbourhood health centre when needed, and in a hospital if necessary. Choose a need to see how far a patient goes.

  1. The patient

  2. Digital

    Digitally by default

  3. Home

    In a patient’s home if possible

  4. Health centre

    In a neighbourhood health centre when needed

  5. Hospital

    In a hospital if necessary

Digitally by default. Medicines are managed in the NHS App, through My Medicines.

By 2028 the NHS App will be a full front door to the entire NHS: instant advice and booking through My NHS GP, choosing a provider, managing medicines, and booking tests.

Waiting times against the NHS’s own standards

The plan is measured against the NHS’s own standards, each a time limit and the share of patients who should be seen within it. The planning framework sets the steps to them, year by year, to March 2029.

70% by March 202792% by March 202918 weeks

Planned treatment within 18 weeks

0.0%

of patients waiting to start planned treatment who had waited 18 weeks or less, July 2026

7.3 million waiting, 0.8% fewer than a year earlier.

82% by March 202785% by 2028/294 hours

A&E within 4 hours

0.0%

of A&E patients admitted, transferred, or discharged within 4 hours, August 2026

Attendances were 3.4% higher than a year earlier.

80% by March 202785% by March 202962 days

Cancer treatment within 62 days

0.0%

of patients starting cancer treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral, July 2026

79.3% were told within 28 days whether they had cancer, against 80%.

Each rim is a hundred patients. The notches are the planning framework’s targets; the A&E target for 2028/29 is the average for the year. July 2025’s 18-week figure is worked out from July 2026’s and the 4.1-point rise NHS England reports.

A centre in every community

A neighbourhood health centre is a one-stop shop: GP, pharmacy, and urgent treatment under one roof from the day it opens, and in time debt advice, employment and family support, and voluntary groups. The government has pledged 250 of them by 2035.

GPPharmacyUrgent treatmentDebtadviceEmploymentsupportFamilysupportVoluntarygroups

Open at least 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

27open by 2027120open by 2030250by 2035
  • The first wave, backed by up to £50 million, in the communities that need them most.
  • The first 120 of the pledge. The first 50 are backed by £200 million in all, to upgrade existing buildings.

  1. Name the few shifts everything else serves.

    The plan fits in three shifts, and its other chapters, on the operating model, transparency, the workforce, innovation, and money, are each written as what the shifts need to happen at pace. We recommend a plan short enough to repeat, with every other piece of work saying which part of it it serves.

  2. Set the stepping stones as well as the destination.

    The 92% standard for March 2029 comes with steps: 65% by March 2026, which was met, and 70% nationally by March 2027, with every trust improving by at least 7 points or reaching 65%, whichever is greater. We recommend giving each team its own next step, so a target years away is something to act on this quarter.

  3. Put the league table in public.

    The plan commits to league tables that rank providers against quality measures, published for patients as well as managers, and to showing waits, ratings, and outcomes in the NHS App. We recommend making progress visible to everyone the plan affects, so the conversation starts from the same numbers.

Sources

  1. 1. Department of Health and Social Care (2025). Fit for the future: 10 Year Health Plan for England, executive summary. GOV.UK, 3 July 2025. gov.uk
  2. 2. NHS England (2025). Medium Term Planning Framework: delivering change together 2026/27 to 2028/29. NHS England, 24 October 2025. england.nhs.uk
  3. 3. Department of Health and Social Care (2026). Communities to benefit from health centres on their doorstep. Press release, 26 March 2026. gov.uk
  4. 4. NHS England (2026). “Huge moment” as the health service hits 18-week target amid half-a-million waiting list drop. NHS England news, 14 May 2026. england.nhs.uk
  5. 5. NHS England (2026). NHS referral to treatment (RTT) waiting times data, July 2026. Statistical press notice, 10 September 2026. england.nhs.uk
  6. 6. NHS England (2026). A&E attendances and emergency admissions, August 2026. Statistical commentary, 10 September 2026. england.nhs.uk
  7. 7. NHS England (2026). A&E attendances and emergency admissions, March 2026. Statistical commentary, April 2026. england.nhs.uk
  8. 8. NHS England (2026). Cancer waiting times: national time series, October 2009 to July 2026 (provisional). NHS England statistics, September 2026. england.nhs.uk
  9. 9. Department of Health and Social Care (2026). Selling tobacco, herbal smoking products and cigarette papers. GOV.UK guidance, 11 August 2026. gov.uk
  10. 10. Department of Health and Social Care (2026). Banning the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to children: consultation outcome. GOV.UK, 16 July 2026. gov.uk

Headwater is not connected with the NHS, NHS England, or the Department of Health and Social Care. NHS is a registered trade mark of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Updated 29 September 2026.

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