10 Year Health Plan: Our key takeaways

On 3 July 2025, the Government published its flagship 10 Year Health Plan for England, centred around three ‘key shifts’ – hospital to community; sickness to prevention; and analogue to digital.  

At 168 pages, there's a lot of detail and a lot still to unpack. We discuss some of our early takeaways on what the ‘three shifts’ and workforce-related commitments mean for clinical radiology and clinical oncology.  

The plan rightly identifies several challenges facing doctors in the NHS. This includes bottlenecks in medical training pathways, clinical time lost to administrative tasks, and poor staff wellbeing and morale.  

One positive is a commitment to develop a new set of standards, to make the NHS a great place to work. We are particularly pleased that employers will be expected to publish data on these standards every quarter – something we have called for in our census reports. We’re also pleased to see greater recognition of clinical leadership in the plan, including a commitment to ensuring support is available for future leaders – another area we are championing.  

However, while bottlenecks in medical training pathways are identified as an issue, solutions to address this are limited. ‘1,000 new speciality training posts’ over the next three years are promised in specialties with the greatest need – we will, of course, be making the case for growth in our specialties.  

Other commitments include prioritising UK graduates for foundation training and specialty training; the latter including other doctors who have worked in the NHS for a significant period. There are several points about skill mix and training to task, and we want to understand more about what this means in our specialties.   

Finally, the plan contains a range of commitments on improving training, including an ‘overhaul [in] education and training curricula’. We expect the detail on this to be decided through the Review of Medical Training in England, and the specific numbers to be decided in the updated NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, both of which will be published later this year. We’ll ensure we stay close to both of these processes over the next few months. 

It will come as no surprise that AI is lauded as having a vital role to play in an ‘NHS Fit for the Future’. It is expected to free up clinical time by reducing time spent on administrative tasks. We would love this to become true, but we know that poor IT infrastructure means the promise can seem far from our reality.  

The plan also promises that AI could support the development of care plans, help with staff rostering and, of course, support reporting in radiology. To enable this, there’s a commitment to streamlining procurement and a new regulatory framework for AI-driven medical devices in 2026, which is important and something we welcome. Our specialties have been at the forefront of AI deployment in the NHS for some time, so we are well placed to advise on how this is developed – watch this space for more work to come. We feel strongly that AI deployment is clinician-led – something our recent polling found is also important to the public.  

The plan makes positive commitments to support the shift from sickness to prevention (some newer announcements than others), with a range of measures including clinical trials on cancer vaccines, action to cut down smoking and encouraging the food industry to provide healthier food. Some of these commitments aren’t new, but it’s positive to see steps taken that will help reduce cancer rates in the long term.  

However, both cancer rates and demand for care are rising, as the complexity of care increases. At the same time, the clinical oncology workforce shortfall is at 15% and we predict it will hit 19% by 2029. Measures to prevent more cancers won’t change the trajectory in this timeframe, so it’s just as important as ever that we build a robust cancer workforce. We’ll be pushing for this in the long term workforce plan.  

One of the most prominent announcements in the plan is the creation of neighbourhood health centres, bringing a range of services together in local hubs. The idea is that this will mean people can access the care they need closer to where they live which, in turn, will reduce pressure on hospitals.  

It’s not yet clear what role radiology and oncology will play in these centres, or how they’ll connect with existing community diagnostic centres.  We’ll be keeping a close eye as details emerge, to ensure that any shifts in funding away from hospital towards community settings don’t negatively impact our specialties.  

The 10 Year Health Plan makes ambitious commitments which have the potential to transform the NHS. We support a lot of these moves and there are some important developments we already know we want to influence, such as a new regulatory framework for AI.  However, it’s hard to get a full picture of what it means with so little detail on implementation plans. 

Ultimately, the success of the plan depends on a supported NHS workforce, and we know there’s a long way to go. The Medical Training Review and Long Term Workforce Plan are key. We’ll work hard to influence those, and keep you updated as we go.