How Does Integrated Care Do With, Not for, Neighbourhoods & Communities?

A notable development in recent years has been the emphasis on structuring integrated care around ‘neighbourhoods’ or ‘places’ and engaging ‘communities’ in the planning, design and delivery of support. Across the world, related principles are being used to inform national and regional policies and to develop local practice innovations. Despite such interest, community and neighbourhood working can feel a radical endeavour which clashes with established structures, relationships, investments and skills. A group of international experts from policy, practice, communities and research came together at a roundtable at the International Conference on Integrated Care 2026 to debate how integrated care can authentically adopt these principles. Agreeing what is meant by such concepts and how they can be utilised in practice is an important starting point – ‘neighbourhoods’ were generally seen to be more geographically oriented and where people physically live, whereas ‘communities’ relate to the connections and relationships which matter to people. Addressing power and resource imbalances requires investing in the voluntary and community sector and framing neighbourhoods as the responsibility of the whole system, including hospitals. Building the professional skills and capacity for neighbourhood working means embedding as a core competency with qualifying and on-going education. Creating the organisational and system capacities to sustain involves developing performance metrics and processes which emphasis shared outcomes. Such developments also require researchers to support with the process of change through responsive, co-produced and accessible methodologies.