What the Government’s 10 Year Health Plan means for people in Yorkshire

On 3 July 2025, the Government published its long-awaited 10 Year Health Plan for England, setting out the changes that will be made to the NHS over the next decade.

This blog will delve into what the plan is, how it could impact healthcare in Yorkshire and what more needs to be done to ensure people across the region can live longer healthier lives, free from cancer.

Why the 10 Year Health Plan is needed

In October 2024, a review commissioned by the Government and led by Professor Lord Darzi found the NHS was in “critical condition". According to the report, cancer outcomes in England were significantly falling behind those in other countries, and urgent reform was needed to address challenges relating to cancer care and treatment.

What did Yorkshire Cancer Research call for?

To help shape the long-term future of the NHS, the Government invited members of the public, people working in healthcare and representatives from other organisations to share their views on key challenges facing the NHS and how the health service should change for the better. 

In response, Yorkshire Cancer Research submitted recommendations for the 10 Year Health Plan, including:

• Automatic enrolment into stop smoking support to be incorporated into lung screening.
• A mandatory rule that all alcohol products are clearly and consistently labelled with health information.
• A long-term strategy to be introduced that addresses the causes of excess body weight, which is linked to increased risk of cancer and other diseases.
• A research funding system to be created that distributes funding more fairly across the regions of the UK, including Yorkshire.
• Exercise-based treatment following a cancer diagnosis to be made a standard part of cancer care, which is proven to increase survival and reduce the risk of cancer returning.

The charity also wrote to the Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, to ensure Yorkshire’s voice was heard as the Government developed its Plan.

What changes to the NHS are being made?

Many of these policies have been included in the Plan’s broader aims to improve the NHS by:

• Moving care from hospitals to communities
• Moving from analogue to digital technology
• Moving from treating sickness to prevention first
• Improving research and innovation within the NHS

But how will these changes affect people in Yorkshire?

What the 10 Year Health Plan means for people in Yorkshire 

Hospitals to Communities

The 10 Year Health Plan aims to move more care from hospitals into communities, so people can easily receive the care they need closer to home. 

The Plan includes a commitment to opening Neighbourhood Health Centres in every community. These centres will provide a range of health services including stop smoking support, more ways to diagnose people with illnesses and resources to help people recover from surgery.

This is particularly important in Yorkshire, where the region’s large and diverse geography can make it harder for people to access healthcare services such as screening appointments. The RURALLY study, funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research, has shown that people in rural communities often delay seeking help for cancer symptoms due to long travel times. Bringing healthcare services closer to where people live could help improve early cancer diagnosis in the region and save lives.

Analogue to Digital

The Plan aims to increase the use of technology, AI and digital tools like the NHS App, so healthcare professionals can spend less time on administrative tasks and help more people.

Inequalities across Yorkshire mean that it can be harder for people living in some areas to access healthcare. For example, GPs in Kingston upon Hull East, one of the most deprived constituencies in the region, look after an average of 3,664 people - over twice the number of people cared for by GPs in the York Outer constituency. New technology could give healthcare professionals vital time with the people who need it the most.

The Plan will also see technology play an essential role in personalised care. Wearable devices like smartwatches will be used more widely to support cancer prevention and recovery from treatment. These devices could potentially provide key health data to support tailored exercise programmes for people preparing for and recovering from cancer treatment. 

Findings from the research-backed cancer exercise treatment service, Active Together, demonstrate the huge benefits that exercise brings to people with cancer. Funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research and designed by Sheffield Hallam University’s Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre, the service is backed by well-established scientific evidence that exercise can increase survival, improve recovery from treatment and reduce the risk of cancer coming back.

The shift to digital technology in the NHS could help provide life-changing cancer exercise treatment to even more people across the region.

Sickness to Prevention

The Plan aims to shift the NHS to focus on how to prevent an illness before it starts, including how to prevent people from developing cancer. Key initiatives include:

• Offering lung screening to people with a history of smoking. Automatic enrolment into stop smoking support will also be available via the NHS for all routine care appointments such as GP check-ups.
• A series of obesity measures, such as a requirement for food companies to report on how healthy their products are.
• A mandatory rule for alcohol products to be labelled with health and nutritional information.
• Testing a person’s genes and how they interact, which is called genomic testing, to help predict someone’s future health issues.

In Yorkshire, avoidable risk factors such as smoking, excess weight and drinking alcohol lead to nearly 12,000 cases of cancer each year; in 2023, there were more than 2,200 alcohol-related deaths in Yorkshire, and smoking is the region’s biggest cause of cancer-related death. Additionally, up to 12 in every 100 cancers are caused by genetic faults that are passed down in families, yet the majority of people affected by them do not know. If these faults are found, measures can be taken to prevent cancers that they may cause. By tackling these risk factors head-on, more cancers – and deaths - in Yorkshire could be prevented.

Research and Innovation

The focus on research and innovation in the 10 Year Health Plan features the introduction of ‘innovator passports’, designed to fast-track new treatments and technologies through the NHS. New Regional Health Innovation Zones will also bring together local organisations to test and scale up new ideas.

Significant investment in innovation like this could allow Yorkshire to continue to develop as a thriving research-active region that grows cancer research expertise and resources, for the benefit of everyone impacted by cancer.

An NHS fit for Yorkshire?

Yorkshire Cancer Research broadly welcomes the commitments outlined in the 10 Year Health Plan, particularly the Government’s focus on prevention, early diagnosis and innovation. But there is still more to be done. 

For example, Regional Health Innovation Zones will be rolled out first in areas which already have strong science and health resources. This means that Yorkshire, which receives only 5% of health research funding despite making up 8% of the UK population, may continue to fall behind. Fair access to the benefits of health research is crucial to addressing health inequalities in the region. 

More detail is needed on how the Government’s ambitious changes to the NHS will be implemented in a way that works for Yorkshire’s diverse population. A targeted strategy that addresses the needs and challenges facing healthcare in Yorkshire is essential to ensure that no one in the region is left behind. 

The upcoming National Cancer Plan, expected later this year, presents a critical opportunity to build on this momentum and deliver meaningful change for people affected by cancer in Yorkshire, and beyond.

How can the National Cancer Plan go further? 

Yorkshire Cancer Research’s landmark White Rose Cancer Report makes four key recommendations to be included in the National Cancer Plan. These are: 

1. Prevent more cancers and tackle smoking by automatically offering more people support to stop smoking throughout the NHS. The Government has committed to providing stop smoking support in routine hospital care, but it should be offered at as many touchpoints within the NHS as possible; for example, while waiting in A&E or at mental health appointments
2. Diagnose cancer sooner by giving people access to innovative cancer screening programmes that are properly funded. Too many people in Yorkshire are diagnosed at a late stage when cancer is often harder to treat and survival less likely.
3. Improve cancer survival by making research-backed exercise treatment available to everyone after being diagnosed. Global evidence shows that cancer exercise treatment reduces the risk of death and reduces the risk of cancer returning.
4. Give Yorkshire its fair share of cancer research funding to help save more lives. Where you live should not determine whether you can take part in pioneering research and benefit from the latest treatments.

Take action now and send a message to Westminster from Yorkshire that cannot be ignored.