The NHS’s new Medium-Term Planning Framework: Delivering Change Together is described as the most significant reset of the health service in a generation.

We welcome its focus on: reducing waiting lists and improving outcomes, expanding same-day GP access, increasing community health capacity, and moving more care closer to home.

The renewed emphasis on neighbourhood health, prevention, and integration reflects what our members deliver every day: trusted, community-based mental health support that helps people stay well and connected.

We particularly welcome commitments to eliminate inappropriate out-of-area placements (OAPs) by March 2027, and end the commissioning of locked rehabilitation inpatient services – both vital to protecting people’s wellbeing and promoting recovery in the least restrictive settings.

The Framework acknowledges the role of the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector – but mentions it only twice. This omission risks undermining the very ambitions it sets out to achieve.

Our members of VCFSE mental health service providers, supporting over 8 million people across England and Wales, are already central to prevention, early intervention, and ongoing support in communities. They are indispensable to neighbourhood health and integrated care – not an optional extra.

To deliver the NHS’s ambitions, funding and commissioning must shift to recognise and resource VCFSE mental health service providers.

To ensure this framework succeeds, we are calling for:

Resourcing the VCFSE sector

• Ring-fenced local allocations for VCFSE-led community mental health provision.
• Multi-year contracts (3–5 years) for stability and workforce retention.

Embedding partnership in commissioning

• Require Integrated Care Boards to evidence co-production and co-delivery with VCFSE partners in their system plans.
• Involve the Association of Mental Health Providers in national delivery planning for the new mental health model due in 2026.

Enabling parity and integration

• Ensure VCFSE access to shared care records and NHS App pathways.
• Deliver fair workforce treatment, including parity on pay uplifts for commissioned services.
• Include VCFSE-delivered outcomes in national and system-level metrics – such as reductions in OAPs, length of stay, and non-elective admissions avoided.

“Our members are already delivering the neighbourhood health, prevention, and integration that this Framework depends on. But without dedicated funding, partnership, and fair commissioning, the ambitions it sets out cannot be achieved. The NHS must resource the VCFSE sector as a core delivery partner – not an afterthought.”

– Dania Hanif, Chief Executive, Association of Mental Health Providers

Read the Framework: Medium-Term Planning Framework: Delivering Change Together (2026/27–2028/29)