Making Neighbourhood Integration A Reality: Summer 2026 Event

Earlier this summer, we held a strategic event at City St George’s, University of London, bringing together 75 representatives from care providers, local authorities, care associations, policy, research, health and academia.

The event was an opportunity to reflect on:

How care providers can play a more strategic role within neighbourhood health and care systems
What might be possible if barriers between health, social care and housing communities were overcome
The practical steps needed to make this happen.

Watch a summary:

The event reinforced the importance of building relationships across sectors, sharing learning and strengthening the voice of care providers.

Neighbourhood integration does not simply mean bringing existing services closer together. It requires a different way of working, built around people and communities with social care recognised as an equal partner. This means moving away from organisational boundaries, towards shared responsibility for the wellbeing of local communities.

Some ideas discussed to explore further were:

Care homes as neighbourhood hubs

This could involve care homes opening their facilities and activities to local people, strengthening links with community organisations and creating more opportunities for people living in care homes to remain connected to and contribute to their communities.

Building stronger local navigation and connection

Trusted neighbourhood champions, community health trainers, local navigators and community connectors could all have a role in connecting local people with services, communities and opportunities, alongside better recognition of volunteers.

Learn from what is already working

Rather than developing new models, identify existing examples of effective neighbourhood working, understand what makes them successful and build the evidence around them. Small-scale pilots and ‘test and learn’ approaches could support ideas development before they are upscaled.

Download the event report

A selection of photos from the day:

For more information, please get in touch: