Leader of engagement and policy on the 10-Year Health Plan, Sally Warren, has said it will involve delivering ‘unprecedented' change.

The 10-Year Health Plan director general's comments came during NHS ConfedExpo in Manchester yesterday.

Warren said: ‘If we successfully deliver the 10-Year Plan, in 10 years' time the NHS will be completely reimagined.

‘It will look completely different from where it is today.'

Responding to comments that the three shifts were not radical enough, Warren said: ‘Delivering the shifts would be radical and it's for us all to hold that.'

‘We are talking about some really big change over the 10 years in terms of the culture of the system,' Warren added.  

She said the plan entailed a move towards a patient-controlled system.

‘Patients being in the driving seat is a really, really important north star for our work and the 10-Year Plan,' Warren said.

The policy leader said the NHS needed to move towards a ‘much more devolved and disaggregated system'.

‘We've got a system which is broadly about bricks and mortar at the moment and we need to have a system that's much more reflective of a whole host of different delivery mechanisms that isn't just about buildings,' she added.

The policy chief said the NHS needed to become an institution that is ‘delivering for all patients, not just for some patients'.

Finally, Warren said the plan entailed a shift from the NHS seeing itself as a single institution to recognizing it is part of a ‘broader ecosystem with lots of different partners', including the voluntary sector, local government, industry and research.