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In this blog, Laura Tilston, our Research and Policy Manager, gives us her thoughts on the Health Creation Alliance’s Partnership Summit on creating wealth through investing in community agency.
I recently attended the Health Creation Alliance’s Partnership Summit on creating wealth through investing in community agency, and it was an inspiring and energising day. The event brought together voices from across sectors and backgrounds to champion the role of communities in building health and wealth.
You can find a copy of the agenda here for a full list of speakers and workshops.
Throughout the day, we heard powerful examples of how VCFSE community-led approaches are already making a difference. From grassroots organisations tackling food insecurity and loneliness, to local care systems investing directly in people rather than hospital beds, the message was clear community agency works.
At a time when the NHS is under immense pressure, Dr Minal Bakhai, Director for Primary Care and Community Transformation at NHS England, is championing a bold shift: moving care closer to communities through the Neighbourhood Health model.
Her speech, an honest reflection on the challenges facing the NHS but also a hopeful call to action, offered a compelling vision for the VCFSE sector to step into a more central role.
While the NHS has long spoken about prevention, policy and funding have not kept pace resulting in a disconnect between national ambitions and local realities. The result? A system that still revolves around hospitals and acute care, with community based care seeing an overall decline resulting in significant increases to mitigatable emergency admissions (Dr Bakhai cited a 50% reduction in district nursing as an example) .
Dr Bakhai highlighted that 80% of future health demand is driven by just eight conditions, including depression, diabetes, and heart disease – all of which are deeply influenced by social and community factors.
For the VCFSE sector, this presents both a challenge and an opportunity. As Dr Bakhai noted, many of these emergency admissions and hospital visits are driven by these preventable conditions, many of which can be addressed through community-based support. Yet, the majority of healthcare still happens in clinical settings outside of communities. 50–60% expansion in community services is needed to truly shift care out of hospitals and into neighbourhoods. This is where the VCFSE sector can make a transformative impact.
The Neighbourhood Health model moves away from fragmented, body-part-based care and toward a whole-person approach. It is broader than just health, and takes into account the social determinants of health and place-based needs. It’s about “doing with” communities, not “doing to” them – a philosophy that aligns perfectly with the values and practices of the VCFSE sector. When asked by an audience member about where investment should land within neighourhood health planning, Dr Bakhai specifically called for investment in befriending services, grassroots organisations, and culturally competent care.
Dr Bakhai acknowledged the structural barriers that prevent meaningful investment in the VCFSE sector. While no new pots of money are expected, she did speculate that investment may come from sources such as reallocating project growth, or seed funding with return on investments, or by keeping acute spending flat.
Ultimately, the goal is to demonstrate collective outcomes and shift commissioning toward value and impact, rather than activity alone. Dr Bakhai was clear, that change is underway.
We need to be investing in communities and building wealth locally, if we are to truly tackle the health inequalities that are so often rooted in austerity, poverty, and poor housing. If we fail to do this, we hold back not only our communities but also the wider economy.
Throughout the day, I heard brilliant examples of VCFSE innovation from across the country. The VCFSE sector is already delivering culturally competent, locally trusted services, but needs long-term, sustainable funding to scale and sustain its impact. . Communities must be involved in co-designing services, and have a stake in health, housing and local decision-making, which must be reinforced and emboldened through devolution.
Dr Bakhai’s leadership on Neighbourhood Health offers a strategic opening for the VCFSE sector. The VCFSE sector is already doing the work. What’s missing is the investment, recognition, and structural support to scale it.
To seize opportunities that Neighbourhood Health could provide the VCFSE sector and communities, we need commissioners, policymakers, and system leaders to invest in community agency, shift funding models, and embed VCFSE organisations as equal partners in health creation from the ground up. Real innovation means breaking from the status quo, even when difficult.
Voluntary Sector North West will continue to advocate for this vision, and support our members in driving forward neighbourhood health and community-powered change.
