75 years on from the foundation of the NHS, our national health and care system continues to innovate and transform to improve the health and wellbeing of local communities. As the health service celebrates its birthday this month (on 5 July 2023), locally in mid and south Essex a new five-year plan for local health and care services has been published.

Read the five-year plan: Joint Forward Plan – Mid and South Essex Integrated Care System (ics.nhs.uk)

The newly published NHS Mid and South Essex Joint Forward Plan sets out how local NHS organisations aims to meet the needs of everyone in mid and south Essex over the next five years.

Split into three parts, the plan explains the collective ambitions and shared commitments of NHS partners, how they intend to achieve them and how they will deliver on the national NHS Long Term Plan commitments.

The plan will develop over time and will be updated each year, based on conversations with local people, staff and partners, recognising the collective strength in working together to resolve the challenges and share successes.

At the heart of this work is the desire to improve the health of the local population by working in partnership with others including local authorities, public health teams, health and social care professionals, service providers and residents themselves.

Plans also include proposals to address more immediate priorities around improving urgent and emergency care, primary care and mental health services, reduce waits for planned treatments, surgery and care, as well as improve the financial position.

Achieving the ambitions of a new NHS five-year plan will mean working differently, shifting focus from treatment to prevention and better support for people to make healthier choices whilst improving local services and the way care is provided. The duty and shared commitment of all the NHS organisations will always be to ensure that communities in mid and south Essex receive high-quality, accessible healthcare both now and in the future.

The ambitions of the NHS Mid and South Essex Joint Forward Plan both respond to and support the joint health and wellbeing strategies of our three upper tier local authority partners (Essex County Council, Southend City Council and Thurrock Council), and the Integrated Care Strategy that was jointly developed earlier this year by the Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Partnership.