RIDRAW INSIGHTS
RiDraw Insights · Programme Intelligence

The NNHIP programme
needs operational discipline,
not more strategy decks

We've studied the 43 pilot sites, analysed what's working across the programme, and applied the same methodology that's delivered results in aviation, defence, and country-level infrastructure. This is what we've found.

43
Wave 1 sites analysed
£0
Additional funding per site
85%
A&E reduction at best-performing site

What the NNHIP Is — and Isn't

Launched September 2025 under the 10 Year Health Plan. 43 sites from 141 applications. Overseen by a DHSC/NHSE taskforce chaired by Sir John Oldham. The programme provides coaching and peer learning — not funding, not resources, not delivery capacity.

141 → 43

Competitive selection

30% acceptance rate. Applications required co-sponsorship from ICB CEOs, local authority chiefs, and key providers. Sites with existing integrated working were prioritised.

4

National enabler groups

Data/Digital, Finance, Estates, Workforce — the four barriers that NNHIP's taskforce has identified as systemic blockers to neighbourhood health delivery.

18

Team members per site

Each Place was asked to nominate 18 key people: community nurses, hospital doctors, social care workers, pharmacists, VCSE representatives, and local authority staff.

6

Core components

Proactive care, urgent neighbourhood services, population health management, prevention, integrated working, and community engagement — as defined in NHS England's 2025 guidelines.

What's Working: The Early Evidence

The strongest performing sites share three characteristics: pre-existing multi-agency relationships, proactive patient identification using risk stratification, and care coordinator roles embedded directly within primary care. Folkestone & Hythe cut A&E visits for at-risk patients from 223 to 33 in six months. East Birmingham's Integrated Neighbourhood Team reduced A&E admissions by 7% and hospital admissions by 10% in year one.

The pattern: success correlates with operational coordination and evidence discipline — not with additional funding or new technology. The sites that are progressing fastest are the ones that defined outcomes, mapped stakeholders, and built governance before they started delivering.

What's Stalling: The Common Blockers

Five months in, the most frequently cited barriers are: governance complexity (who leads the neighbourhood team when no single organisation owns it?), data sharing between providers, workforce capacity in community nursing and social prescribing, and the absence of agreed outcome metrics. Sites without a clear evidence framework struggle to demonstrate progress — and without evidence, the case for continued investment collapses.

The gap NNHIP doesn't fill: the programme provides coaching and peer learning. It does not provide governance templates, evidence frameworks, stakeholder alignment methodology, or implementation capacity. Sites that bring these capabilities themselves — or source them externally — are outperforming those that wait for the programme to deliver them.

Neighbourhood health is an operations
integration challenge — not a clinical one

The clinical models exist. What's missing is the programme architecture to make them work across organisational boundaries. RiDraw brings the operational transformation methodology we've proven in aviation, defence, and country-level infrastructure into health and care.

Aviation
Airport Masterplan Transformation
Multi-stakeholder programme delivery across terminal modernisation, airfield operations, and regulatory compliance. Coordinating airlines, ground handlers, regulators, and construction teams operating in a live environment — the same complexity neighbourhood health teams face across NHS, council, and VCSE boundaries.
£2.3B+ programme environments
Defence
Defence Estate Optimisation
Supporting the transformation of complex estate portfolios where multiple agencies, security requirements, and operational continuity constraints mirror the governance challenges of integrated care systems. Evidence-chain methodology for audit-ready delivery across dispersed sites.
£5B+ estate portfolios
Malta
National Infrastructure & Climate Resilience
Country-level stakeholder alignment across EU Cohesion funding (€817M), airport modernisation (€345M), and the EU's first Climate Action Authority. Designing governance and evidence frameworks for programmes spanning government, private sector, and international bodies.
€1.4B+ programme landscape
Ghana
Infrastructure Development Advisory
Supporting infrastructure transformation in emerging markets where institutional capacity, multi-stakeholder complexity, and the need for robust evidence chains are magnified. Building governance capability that outlasts the advisory engagement.
Capability transfer model
Vietnam
Built Environment Transformation
Navigating complex stakeholder environments across government, development finance, and private sector delivery partners. Applying TIP methodology to create audit-ready evidence chains in contexts where institutional frameworks are being built alongside the programmes they serve.
Cross-government coordination
Aberdeen
Energy Transition Zone
£400M+ development programme at the intersection of decommissioning, floating wind, and just transition. Multi-stakeholder alignment across Scottish Enterprise, city council, energy operators, and community interests — governance design for programmes with competing priorities and shared accountability.
£30B+ infrastructure pipeline

The common thread: every one of these environments involves multiple organisations that must deliver shared outcomes without shared governance. That's exactly what neighbourhood health asks of NHS trusts, GPs, councils, community providers, and voluntary organisations. The methodology that works in a live airport or a multi-billion-pound defence programme works here — because the underlying challenge is the same.

TIP + Five Elements

Two interlocking frameworks. TIP structures the work. Five Elements structures the analysis. Together they produce the audit-ready evidence chain that NNHIP sites need to demonstrate impact to ICB boards, NHSE, and the national taskforce.

Tasks

What needs to happen,
who owns it, by when

Initiatives

How tasks group into
deliverable workstreams

Proof

Evidence it's working
(or early warning it isn't)

Purpose Place Habitat Environment Organisation

Applied to Neighbourhood Health

Purpose maps to population health outcomes and the specific cohorts each site is targeting. Place grounds the work in the geography, community characteristics, and existing assets. Habitat addresses the physical estate — GP surgeries, community hubs, hospital interfaces — and directly supports the NNHIP estates enabler group. Environment captures the policy context, funding rules, and regulatory requirements that constrain local action. Organisation maps the governance, decision-making, and accountability structures that determine whether multi-agency working actually works.

The result is a complete picture of the neighbourhood — not just the clinical model, but the conditions that make it succeed or fail. Every element produces auditable evidence through the TIP chain: tasks completed, initiatives delivered, proof verified.

Site-Specific Briefs

Detailed analysis for individual sites and regions — deprivation data, stakeholder mapping, comparative analysis with adjacent pioneer sites, and practical recommendations.

South East · East Kent

Thanet & East Kent

QEQM Margate catchment. 21% population in bottom 10% deprivation. Adjacent to Folkestone & Hythe pioneer site.

Live
London · North East London

Barking & Dagenham

NNHIP Wave 1 pilot. High deprivation, diverse population, strong existing partnership infrastructure.

Coming soon
London · North Central

North Central London

Major ICB merger + NNHIP pilot. 4.5M combined population across the largest merger in England.

Coming soon
Midlands · West Midlands

East Birmingham

INT operational at Washwood Heath. Year one: 7% A&E reduction, 10% hospital admissions down.

Coming soon
London · South East London

Lambeth & Southwark

Strong multi-provider partnership. Guy's, King's, SLaM, two boroughs, and GP federations aligned.

Coming soon
North East · Tees Valley

Stockton

High deprivation, health inequalities focus. Part of NENC region with strong integrated care history.

Coming soon

Interested in a brief for your area?

We prepare tailored intelligence for clinical and system leaders navigating neighbourhood health — whether you're in a Wave 1 site or building the case for Wave 2.

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Santosh · RiDraw · santosh@ridraw.com