Health & Wellbeing

A statement from England’s 42 ICS-VCSE Alliances on the 10-Year Health Plan: it's time to accelerate local transformation

A review of patient safety across the health and care system, published in July 2025 addresses concerns about the fragmented landscape of six oversight bodies and the broader functions that underpin quality and safety in care.

Last week, the government published its 10 Year Health Plan. We've summarised the paper from a voluntary sector perspective, with a focus on the key themes relevant to the local VCSE sector and the role of local infrastructure and ICS-VCSE Alliances. We encourage you to share this with your local networks.

System change starts with a mindset shift. If we want to build resilient, community-driven health systems, we must prioritise collaboration over control, empowerment over exclusion, and partnership over paternalism.

The voluntary and community sector is large and diverse. It includes the big household name charities, as well as the smallest, often unregistered, voluntary and community groups. These groups could be described as the ‘microbiome’ of the sector – they are essential to community health and wellbeing, just as the human microbiome is essential to our individual health. However, the voluntary sector microbiome often goes unseen and unrecognised, despite playing an essential role in communities.

In this guest blog, Garry Jones, CEO of NAVCA member Support Staffordshire, explores the new changes to buying healthcare services and what this means for the voluntary sector.