Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential impact of the proposed neighbourhood health service on care coordination for people living with Huntington’s disease and other long-term neurological conditions.

The Government is committed to improving the lives of those living with rare diseases, including Huntington’s Disease. The UK Rare Diseases Framework sets out four priorities collaboratively developed with the rare disease community. These include getting a final diagnosis faster, increasing awareness of rare diseases among healthcare professionals, better coordination of care, and improving access to specialist care, treatments, and drugs. We published the fifth annual England action plan in February 2026 to report on the steps taken to advance these priorities.

The Neighbourhood Health Service will ensure that people can better access care that is joined up, personalised, and designed to proactively meet their needs. It will improve access by making it easier to speak to a general practitioner, providing more care closer to where people live, including in Neighbourhood Health Centres, and move us towards a fully digitally enabled health service.

Integrated neighbourhood teams will support people with conditions like Huntington’s Disease that require specialist care by considering their needs holistically, with reference to health, care, and wider needs.

In the Autumn budget, the Government announced its commitment to deliver 250 neighbourhood health centres, with 120 delivered by 2030, through a mix of public private partnership and public capital. On 26 March 2026, we announced Wave 1 of Neighbourhood Health Centre schemes, with 27 sites across England selected to bring care closer to home 12 hours a day, six days a week, backed by £50 million.

Neighbourhood health centres will be the place to go for most health needs in every community. Integrated care boards (ICBs) and local authorities will determine the particular mix of services shaped by local population needs. These will be designed to reflect the priorities and requirements of each community, including the needs of people with Huntington’s disease where appropriate.

In March 2026, we published the Neighbourhood Health Framework to support this service planning. On 15 April 2026, we also published the Neighbourhood Health Centres Guidance and Specification to support regions and ICBs to develop their neighbourhood health estate strategies and pipelines.