10 Year Health Plan

As part of the Government’s commitment to creating the ‘most digitally accessible health system in the world’, the Plan sets out how it will transform the NHS App into the ‘digital front door’ to care by 2028. This will be underpinned by a new Single Patient Record (SPR) which will bring together a patient’s medical records into one place. The SPR will operate as a ‘patient passport’, enabling seamless care for individuals and supporting greater integration across health and care professionals.

How will the NHS App support self-care?

The NHS App will be core to creating an empowering, digitally enabled NHS that puts patients at the centre of their care. Individuals will have access to advice, guidance, self-care support and appointment management via the NHS App. Plans for the NHS App also include directing patients to ‘well-evidenced consumer healthcare products to support their self-care where appropriate’. This is a major step forward and reflects a long-standing PAGB ask.

The Plan also announced a new HealthStore which will allow public access to approved digital health tools to help manage or treat their conditions – some of which will be available to the general public without prescription.

The Plan states that self-care will be a core feature of long-term condition management, delivered through both digital platforms and neighbourhood health service teams. As part of this, the Government has committed to helping people with long-term conditions by giving them access to ‘advice, guidance, self-care support and appointment management via the NHS App’. This will ensure people feel empowered to look after themselves in the community, which in turn will improve patient experience and alleviate pressure off the wider health and care system.

How will digital transformation support health literacy?

The 10 Year Health Plan reinforces the importance of digital tools in tackling health inequalities and enabling timely access to information. These commitments reflect PAGB’s long-standing position that digital innovation must play a central role in supporting people to self-care for self-treatable conditions, relieving pressure across the healthcare system. The Plan commits to digital services being ‘inclusive by design’ with an aim to ‘support people with lower levels of digital literacy’.

A core theme throughout the Plan is the ambition to prevent people from getting ill, or where a disease or condition has already developed, to focus on early detection and prompt intervention to minimise the risk of exacerbation. This will be vital to supporting a healthy and productive population, encouraging self-care and alleviating pressure off the wider health and care system.

Self-care with OTCs

The role that over-the-counter (OTC) medicines play in the prevention of illness is underscored in the Plan, which states that ‘citizens have never been more engaged, knowledgeable and active in their own health. This is reflected in an explosion in the consumer health market’.

The Plan notes the strength of the consumer health market, valued at £4.1 billion in 2024, with sales up 8% on 2023 – referencing data from NielsonIQ presented in PAGB’s Highlights Report.

The Plan also highlights where new innovations are making progress on prevention possible, which is a positive lead in for widening access to more OTC medicines through reclassification, and supports PAGB’s work to realise the full potential of self-care.