Archus launches Neighbourhood Care Framework to support the new 10-year health plan
At Archus, we’ve worked with over 140 NHS Trusts to help them navigate the complex challenges of modern healthcare. That experience has shaped our understanding of what systems need, not just in theory, but in practice, to deliver meaningful, sustainable transformation.
Now, we’ve brought that insight together in one place: the Archus Neighbourhood Care Framework.
This isn’t just another toolkit. It’s a structured, data-driven approach to delivering the NHS’s “left shift” ambition, which involves moving care out of hospitals and into communities, embracing digital innovation, and prioritising prevention over treatment.
It’s designed to help systems turn national strategy into local action, with measurable impact.
Why Neighbourhood Care, and Why Now?
The NHS’s Fit for the Future 10-Year Plan sets a clear direction: care needs to be more local, more digital, and more proactive. But translating that ambition into reality is easier said than done. That’s where our framework comes in.
The Archus Neighbourhood Care Framework
We’ve built a six-step model that helps NHS Trusts and ICBs move from strategic alignment to implementation, grounded in real data, shaped by local context, and aligned with national policy.
The launch of the Neighbourhood Care Framework is a defining moment for the future of healthcare delivery. We’ve moved beyond the anecdotal evidenced-based actions. This framework is our way of saying: we’re ready to support organisations to deliver integrated care, with the framework steps which are practical, data-led, and nationally aligned.
Stephen Lenehan, Associate Director
Outpatients: The opportunity hiding in plain sight
One of the most striking insights from the plan, and one that deeply resonated with us, is the urgent need to rethink outpatient care. As Sir Jim Mackey recently noted, “Outpatients is glaringly obvious. Of 130 million outpatients a year, about 85 million or so are follow-ups” (The Telegraph, 27 June 2025).
That’s a staggering volume of activity, much of which could (and should) be delivered differently.
It’s no wonder the government has set out to eliminate traditional hospital outpatient services by 2035.
Data-driven design for safe, smarter care shifts
What truly sets the Neighbourhood Care Framework apart is its ability to pinpoint where care can safely and effectively shift from acute to community settings and back it up with real-world data.
Using population health insights and gap analysis tools, we help systems identify services that can be delivered closer to home, across local neighbourhoods in support of better patient outcomes.
Central to our methodology is the application of advanced modelling techniques to Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data.
This capability allows NHS organisations to:
- Simulate new care pathways
- Test assumptions before implementation
- Evaluate the impact of changes on capacity, workforce, and outcomes.
It’s a smarter, safer way to plan transformation, one that de-risks decision-making and builds trust across clinical, operational, and executive teams.
Using population health and gap analysis tools, our framework helps identify where services can safely and effectively shift from acute to community settings. And our use of Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data modelling is key to making that shift with confidence. It enables systems to simulate new care pathways, test assumptions, and assess the impact of changes before implementing them. It’s a way to de-risk transformation and build trust in the process.
We’re already working with systems across the UK to implement this approach, and we’re seeing a growing demand for tailored workshops, data modelling support, and strategic planning sessions.
The key to the success of the framework is our use of HES data modelling. This enables organisations to model new care pathways, simulate service shifts, and evaluate the impact of virtual care, diagnostics, and community-based delivery, before implementation. By being able to simulate, stress-test, and refine their plans, NHS leaders can move forward with confidence that their decisions will deliver the health outcomes they’re aiming for.
Geoff Bick, Associate Director
Measurable transformation
We’ve already seen the results. At Midland Metropolitan University Hospital, applying neighbourhood care principles helped:
- Save 78 acute beds through Hospital at Home and virtual ward models
- Improve Emergency Department performance by 10% year-on-year
- Reduce staff turnover by 9%
At Airedale NHS Foundation Trust we’ve developed a Community Estate Strategy that encompasses demand & activity analysis, showing the quantum of appointments (emergency, first outpatient and follow up) that could be delivered away from the acute site, in neighbourhood settings.
Using this analysis, we’ve recommended the number of rooms required to support this shift and developed concise schedules of accommodation to determine the space requirements.
A core element of the strategy has also been the identification and assessment of community properties across the Trusts geographical footprint, in order to determine whether the capacity to accommodate the activity already exists and we’re also in the process of exploring options around new build opportunities to support where required.
The future is local
Neighbourhood care isn’t a side project. It’s the future of the NHS. And we’re here to help make it happen by combining strategic insight, operational expertise, and digital innovation into a single, actionable framework.
If you’re ready to explore how the Neighbourhood Care Framework could support your local transformation journey, we’d love to talk.
If you'd like access to the framework register your interest today.
