Giving local people ownership of their health and social care through local delivery is crucial to empowering patients amid a complex healthcare system.
In parallel with the need for improved health and social care and the renewed importance of life sciences to the UK, our retail centres and high streets have continued to decline. Labour have promised a new towns taskforce to identify priority sites for development and refurbishment within its first 12 months of power to deliver affordable housing, guaranteed public services and attractive places where people of all ages want to live, work, shop and socialise.
Our new report, "Repurposing Retail: Shaping Healthcare and Life Science Services Locally", explores how vacant high street and retail spaces can be transformed to expand healthcare and life sciences, bringing essential services closer to communities.
The report considers how:
- Government and/or local authorities can prioritise shaping underutilised spaces to meet the needs of local populations.
- The role for local authorities to work with ICSs to deliver care in a way which fits community needs, bringing care closer to communities.
- NHSE to prioritise capital investment, including new hospitals programme funding, to driving healthcare in the community.
- The Government to shape an appropriate Public/Private Partnership model to drive this agenda.
