Crohn’s & Colitis UK welcomes this long-term commitment to investing in the NHS. But for people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), this transformation presents both opportunities and concerns. In trying to bring care closer to home, we must not push specialist support further out of reach.

That’s why we’re speaking up on behalf of people with Crohn’s and Colitis, continuing to share their experiences and our insights with decision makers as these plans move from ambition to action. We’ll keep pressing to ensure that those who need regular access to IBD specialists don’t lose out in the shift to community-based care and we’ll keep you informed as the picture develops.

Here is a summary of the proposals and how they might impact people living with Crohn’s and Colitis.

From Hospital to Community

By 2035, the majority of outpatient care, diagnostics, rehabilitation and long-term condition support will be delivered in the community. Routine hospital outpatient appointments where appropriate will become largely virtual. These reforms are intended to improve access and ease pressure on hospitals.

In this shift we want to ensure that access to seeing a specialist is not limited. Crohn’s and Colitis are complex, fluctuating conditions that require timely, in-person care from hospital-based specialists, such as gastroenterologists, IBD nurses, dietitians and mental health professionals.

While there’s nothing in the plan that removes access to specialist hospital teams, we are concerned that a shift towards more community-based care could unintentionally make it harder for people with IBD to get the specialist input they rely on. That’s why we’re standing up for our community, to make sure this transformation delivers better care, not just different care. We’ll keep engaging with decision makers to ensure people with Crohn’s and Colitis continue to have timely access to the hospital-based teams who understand and manage their condition best.

NHS to be “digital by default”

By 2026, every person in England will have access to a single, unified health and care record through the NHS App. People will be able to manage appointments, view test results, request follow-ups, and access personalised care plans in one place.

For people with IBD, new tools that make healthcare more accessible and transparent are welcome, especially when systems are often disjointed or hard to navigate.

The Plan introduces two major tools to support this shift:

• My Companion: A new tool to help patients recognise symptoms, access reliable information in their own language, and feel more confident asking questions in clinical settings, including those they may feel embarrassed about. This could help reduce patient-led delays in diagnosis for IBD.
• My Specialist: A digital platform for people under specialist care to track symptoms, access treatment plans, receive updates from their clinical team, and understand their next steps. It aims to give people more control and clarity, particularly where multiple appointments and medications are involved.

We welcome digital innovation that supports patient control and convenience but digital doesn’t work for everyone. Complex care, often required for IBD, still needs real human relationships and accessible, in-person treatment when required.

Patient Voice is at the heart of the plan

The plan includes important steps to put patients at the heart of the NHS:

• A new National Director of Patient Experience will lead this work across the system.
• Patient feedback, collected through the NHS App, will influence funding decisions and quality standards.
• Patient-reported experience and outcome measures (PROMs and PREMs) will be expanded and publicly accessible.
• Some charities will be formally partnered to support people newly diagnosed with long-term conditions.

These are welcome changes. Crohn’s & Colitis UK has long called for greater use of lived experience to shape services, and we are ready to ensure people with IBD are heard. But too often, patient voice is treated as a side note. These commitments must be embedded into service design from day one.

Workforce Plan Later This Year

The NHS 10-Year Plan sets out a vision for a flexible, digitally skilled, and better-supported workforce. A dedicated NHS Workforce Plan is expected later this year, along with a new professional strategy for nursing and midwifery.

Key pledges include:

• 1,000 new specialty training posts over the next three years
• A “Skills Escalator” to support career progression for nurses and allied health professionals
• Expanded advanced practice roles
• Digital-first education and training through new national platforms

These are important commitments, but there’s a major gap: no mention of gastroenterology or IBD nursing. We know IBD services are under enormous strain, with widespread shortages of IBD nurse specialists, dietitians, and gastroenterologists. Without targeted investment in these roles, promises to improve long-term condition care and reduce hospital pressure will fall short.

Crohn’s & Colitis UK will push to ensure the upcoming Workforce Plan directly addresses the needs of people with IBD and the overstretched teams who support them.

What Needs to Happen Now

The plan shows ambition, but ambition alone is not enough. For people with Crohn’s or Colitis, what matters most is timely, specialist, person-centred care. That must not be lost as the NHS transforms.

1. Hospital-based IBD services not to be deprioritized in this period of change.

2. Dedicated plan to improve the specialist workforce, including IBD Nurses. 

3. Involvement of people with Crohn’s and Colitis in designing services and digital tools from day one. 

4. Stronger focus on Earlier Diagnosis, alongside prevention

We’ll continue to work with NHS leaders and UK Government to make sure the IBD community is not left behind in this new chapter of healthcare reform.

If the NHS is serious about bringing care closer to home, it must also bring the right help with it, because for people with Crohn’s and Colitis, being closer to home must never mean being further from the care they need.