As the plans says, this means NHCs “will not only bring historically hospital-based services such as diagnostics, post-operative care and rehabilitation into the community, but they will also offer services like debt advice, employment support and smoking cessation or weight management services.”

A week after the plan itself launched, another Government announcement promised that the first 42 NHCs would be up and running in September. However, we mustn’t expect the debt advice landscape to be undergoing seismic change too quickly – in this announcement, the word “eventually” was tagged onto the promise of both six-day a week opening and the inclusion of services such as debt advice.

The plan has had a relatively warm reception – in some quarters at least. Private Eye says it has “some good intentions, a lot of waffle, and no delivery plan” – the first words constituting a positive endorsement by its usual hard-nosed, cynical standards. The Money and Mental Health Policy Institute is more generous, calling the joining-up of money and mental health support “a big win”.

As the CEO of a social lender, with a mission to change lives through better lending, I’m certainly on-board with the third of the three ‘big shifts’ outlined at the top of the 10 Year Plan. Through the aim ‘from sickness to prevention’, the Government promises to “reach patients earlier and make the healthy choice the easy choice”.

This mirrors what Fair for You knows well – that giving people an ethical, flexible loan allows them to get their finances back in shape and improve their physical and mental health. Multiple independent social impact reports have shown this to be the case.
It’s much better that a service like ours is available to stop people from suffering more significant hardship or going to an illegal lender and putting their wellbeing in the hands of criminals.

We welcome the Government’s attempt to make debt advice more available, and better aligned to other services. But a single sentence in a document the length of a novel is only a small step towards achieving that. The devil, of course, will be in the detail of delivery.