Neighbourhood Health Centres  

Neighbourhood Health Centres: the Future of Community Care

Budget 2025 announced the most significant community healthcare infrastructure programme in a generation: 250 new Neighbourhood Health Centres, with 120 operational by 2030.

Delivered through the NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme, these centres will transform how communities access healthcare, co-locating GPs, diagnostics, physiotherapy, mental health and social care services in modern, accessible facilities. The programme supports the NHS's shift toward preventative, community-based care as set out in the 10 Year Health Plan.

The programme will deliver through a combination of new builds, upgrading underused buildings, and a new model of Public-Private Partnership developed by NISTA, explicitly building on lessons from NHS LIFT. Early sites are confirmed in Birmingham, Barrow-in-Furness, Truro and Southall.

At Willmott Dixon, we are uniquely equipped to support this transformation.

Why Willmott Dixon for Neighbourhood Health Centres?

NISTA's new PPP model is learning from NHS LIFT, the very programme through which we delivered 15 community health centres. This isn't analogous experience; it's directly relevant expertise in the funding structures, stakeholder complexity and partnership models that will underpin NHC delivery. Our proven expertise includes:

• 30+ community health centres delivered over two decades, including 15 through NHS LIFT PPP
• CURA pre-designed platform: standardised, flexible neighbourhood health solutions ready to deploy
• Development Solutions capability: funding expertise, business case support and PPP structuring
• NHS Net Zero Building Standard experience: proven delivery at Derriford and across our healthcare portfolio
• Proven stakeholder management: including complex multi-client projects with NHS Property Services
• National coverage with local delivery: 19 offices

A Proven Leader in Community Health Delivery

We are recognised as one of the UK's most experienced community health constructors. Our NHS LIFT heritage includes some of the programme's most significant integrated facilities:

• Heart of Hounslow Centre for Health - at 9,000 sqm, one of Europe's largest primary care centres, integrating 18 different services
• Tessa Jowell Health Centre - coordinating 23 stakeholder groups across diagnostics, therapies, mental health and community services
• Waldron Health Centre - 6,000 sqm facility housing 4 GP practices alongside integrated community health services

This experience continues today with projects like Grove View Integrated Health & Care Hub in Dunstable (6,375 sqm, built on our CURA platform), Chiswick Health Centre (serving 60,000 patients with 77% carbon reduction), and Weybridge Health Campus (currently under construction, targeting Net Zero Carbon in Operation).

Our expertise directly aligns with NHC requirements: integrated services, flexible multi-use clinical spaces, standardised footprints, digitally enabled buildings and outstanding sustainability performance.

CURA: designed for neighbourhood healthcare

With 120 centres required by 2030, the NHS needs solutions that deliver speed, certainty and consistency — while adapting to local needs. Our CURA platform is a pre-designed, standardised building solution created for exactly this challenge. CURA offers:

• Compliance with NHS Guidance (e.g., HBNs/HTMs)
• Faster delivery through pre-configured clinical modules and off-site manufacturing
• Cost and programme certainty to support NHS business case development
• Flexible configurations - from compact GP-led facilities to larger integrated hubs combining primary care, diagnostics, mental health, social care and specialist services
• Net zero capability - designed to meet the NHS Net Zero Building Standard, supporting the NHS's 2040 net zero commitment
• Local adaptability - material and vernacular options ensure each facility responds to its community context

CURA gives Integrated Care Boards and NHS partners a head start - reducing time, risk and cost while accelerating community access to improved health services.

Funding to unlock delivery

The NHS Neighbourhood Rebuild Programme will be delivered through a combination of public investment and a new PPP model. Many NHS providers, ICBs and local authorities have aspirations - and often land - but may lack the internal capacity for development, funding strategy and PPP structures.

Our Development Solutions team offers end-to-end development consultancy, drawing on our NHS LIFT experience to provide:

• NHS Business Case support - Strategic Outline Cases through to Full Business Cases with robust cost and deliverability evidence
• PPP structuring expertise - understanding of healthcare PPP funding flows, lease arrangements and risk allocation from 15 LIFT projects
• Funding solutions - alternative approaches to increase capacity, working with our network of advisors and investors
• Asset and land expertise - unlocking potential in existing assets or sourcing sites through our wide network

By combining early-stage planning, viability and funding expertise with construction capability, we help projects move from concept to build more quickly - critical when 120 centres must be operational within five years.

Your Neighbourhood Health Centre programme partner

Neighbourhood Health Centres will transform how communities access care. With our unmatched track record in community health delivery, our CURA standardised platform, our PPP and funding expertise, and our commitment to sustainable, socially valuable buildings, Willmott Dixon stands ready to help the NHS deliver this ambition at pace and at scale.