Building a new town of 10,000 new homes understandably prompts genuine concerns about the impact of the new development on our local NHS.
This is a priority for us too and that’s why we’re working closely with local NHS leaders to understand and plan for the demands of residents who will be living in Wychavon Town now and in the future.
Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as setting out in a planning application how many doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and other clinicians may be needed. That’s because the planning system and the NHS have two very different and distinct roles when it comes to creating a new town.
Here we explain how planning and the NHS are working together to ensure residents of Wychavon Town, and those of existing communities, get access to the healthcare they need. Let’s start with understanding how health services are commissioned and delivered and the roles of different organisations.
NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board (ICB)
This is the group that commissions - in other words plans and pays for - most NHS services locally. This includes hospital, community and primary care services like GPs and dentists. They are a key part of the Wychavon Town Project Board. Their role is to assess the level of healthcare demand Wychavon Town may generate. They will commission the right level of services, for example extra GP appointments, community clinics and dental capacity, and will advise our planners at Wychavon District Council on the type of space and buildings needed to deliver them.
GP practices and Primary Care Networks (PCNs)
Primary Care Networks are groups of neighbouring GP practices that work together with community services and other partners, delivering integrated community care.
Working with the ICB, they will decide how best to deliver GP services for Wychavon Town. This could be for example through a new practice in the town itself, or by adding capacity at nearby surgeries (e.g. recruiting more staff, extending opening hours, or running clinics from the new town).
The ICB will work with the local Primary Care Network and practices to ensure GP services are in place for Wychavon Town. This will evolve over the life of the development, as the new homes are built and occupied.
Dentists, opticians and other high-street health services
Most NHS dentists and opticians are independent contractors who are contracted to provide certain services for patients. How many are needed will again be decided by the ICB who will agree the contracts with the individual provider. These providers sometimes operate out of existing commercial units. From a planning point of view, our role is to ensure there is enough flexible retail space in the new town centre and neighbourhood centres to accommodate these services.
Pharmacy services
Pharmacy provision required to meet the needs of the population within Wychavon Town has to be in line with the Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment which:
- looks at the current provision of pharmaceutical services across Herefordshire and Worcestershire,
- assesses whether service provision meets the current and future needs of the population and
- identifies any potential gaps to service delivery.
The needs assessment will be updated as necessary to reflect changing need, including areas such as housing growth and is used to inform decisions on applications for new pharmacies.
Hospitals and community services
Wychavon Town will sit within the existing network of acute hospitals (Worcestershire Royal, Alexandra Hospital and Kidderminster Hospital and Treatment Centre) along with community hospitals, which include minor injuries units and other outpatient services that run across the county.
The ICB, working with colleagues at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust and Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, will assess current and predicted capacity to understand what will be needed to accommodate demand from Wychavon Town.
The role of Wychavon District Council
While the NHS decides on the type of health services and capacity needed, our role is to ensure there is the right type of space to accommodate them.
There is already a GP healthcare centre planned within the town centre. There will also be a range of flexible space elsewhere within the town centre and in the neighbourhood centres around the town, to provide facilities for dentists, physiotherapists, diagnostic centres etc.
The other major role we have to play is securing contributions from developers to help pay for this space needed to be built. This is usually done through a Section 106 agreement. This is where developers pay a sum of money for a set purpose to reduce any negative impact their proposal may have.
We also have a wider role to encourage healthy and active lifestyles. That’s why the masterplan for Wychavon Town has easy access to lots of green space. It also heavily encourages walking and cycling through active travel routes and by placing local facilities near to where people live.
Will there be a new hospital?
One of the questions we have already been asked a lot is, where is the new hospital for Wychavon Town? It’s understandable to think one is needed, especially with existing hospitals under pressure. However, to understand why one isn’t planned in, you need to understand the vision the NHS has for the future of healthcare.
In July 2025, the NHS published its ten year health plan for England called Fit for the Future.
The plan described how the NHS will take advantage of new technologies, medicines, and innovations to deliver better care for all patients.
Three big shifts in how the NHS currently works are included in the plan:
- from hospital to community: more care will be available on people’s doorsteps and in their homes.
- from analogue to digital: new technology will liberate staff from admin and allow people to manage their care as easily as they bank or shop online.
- from sickness to prevention: we’ll reach patients earlier and make the healthy choice the easy choice.
Put simply, the NHS of the future will rely more on prevention, community diagnostic centres and outpatient hubs in towns and neighbourhood centres. It will also make greater use of remote monitoring of people at home when safe to do so (known as virtual wards), and place more emphasis on prevention rather than cure. Stays in hospital will be shorter and for more specialised care at dedicated sites so it will be more reasonable for people to travel for such services.
All this means there won’t automatically be a need to build a new general hospital when an area grows.
As Wychavon Town is a long-term project that will take approx 20 to 25 years to be fully completed, we have to take into account this changing vision for the NHS, rather than plan the town based on a 1940s model.
For the planning system this means making sure there is the space and right type of buildings to create the primary care and community health hubs needed to support the NHS’ vision. Good road and rail access so people can access the specialist sites will also be important, as will ensuring the digital infrastructure is in place (high speed broadband pre-fitted as standard, 5G or equivalent at the time etc) to support technological innovation.
This shift will take time and in the short-term, some additional capacity at existing hospitals may be needed which the ICB will factor into their strategic planning.
How will you know when Wychavon Town needs more GPs?
The NHS Integrated Care Board leads on assessing healthcare provision for Wychavon Town and the surrounding area. They will advise on the existing capacity of nearby GP surgeries and work with local GP’s to determine the level of additional healthcare facilities needed to support the new community. Their guidance will ensure that local residents have access to appropriate and high-quality primary care services as the development grows.
Fitting it together - infrastructure-led development
As you can see, there is a lot of work already going on between the NHS and us to plan for demand from Wychavon Town’s new patients, long before the first front door is even opened.
We’ve committed to developing Wychavon Town as an infrastructure-led scheme. This means key facilities – like healthcare centres – are delivered alongside housing and not bolted on afterwards, so it’s there and ready to support residents when they need it.
A monitoring system will be in place to trigger when enough people are living in the town for these services to be opened.