Speaking exclusively to HM, Richards said the Plan spoke to ‘urban populations as well as coastal and rural populations'.

Richards said the work Cornwall had been doing as a partnership foundation trust with primary care, VCSC, community interest companies and other acutes, positioned it well to become an integrated health organisation (IHO).

The Plan offers the opportunity for the best foundation trusts to hold whole health budgets for a defined local population as an IHO with a small number of these being designated in 2026 and over time becoming the norm.

Health and social care secretary Wes Streeting namechecks Cornwall as one of the best examples of a neighbourhood health service in the plan, commenting: ‘We know we can build the neighbourhood health service, because teams in Cornwall, Camden and Northumbia are already showing us how to do it.'

Richards also welcomed the Plan's pledge to ‘deconstruct block contracts'.

‘We've been really disadvantaged in community and mental health contracts and the move away to capitated budgets is going to be really welcome,' she said.

Commenting on the fact that the Plan appears to have generally been better received within the NHS than by think-tanks, Richards said: ‘I think that externally, people were expecting some magic wand or some silver bullet, and I don't think that's what this plan was ever intended to be. I think the plan was intended to truly listen to people who use services.'

The trust boss said the plan had ‘reflected the staff voice of the challenges and the challenging conditions within which they've been working over the last 15 years'.

She said it had also recognised how ‘outmoded' the NHS had become and welcomed putting the NHS App ‘front and centre' as the interface with patients going forward.

You can hear more from Richards in The Big Interview in our next issue.