Posted on: 1 February 2024
Hello, my name is Becca and I've been given the opportunity to update our leadership blog readers about the West Yorkshire Community Health Services Provider Collaborative.
But before I talk about who we are and what we are collaborating on, I thought it might be helpful to provide a bit of context about community services.
Community health services provide care to all age groups (including those not yet born…) meaning we have unique opportunity to help people start, live, age and die 'well' (with thanks to Kirklees place for letting me 'pinch with pride' their population health approach for the purpose of this blog).
Organisations such as The King's Fund and NHS Providers, tell us that community services
- Deliver over 100 million patient contacts each year
- Account for £10 billion of the yearly NHS budget
- Account for one-fifth of the total NHS workforce.
It’s no wonder our community services play a key role in keeping people well and supporting people to live independently in their own home.
There is a huge breadth of community services provided, for example around:
- Urgent and unplanned community health services, such as urgent community response, that supports people in crisis requiring a two-hour urgent health or social care related response in the community
- Planned and targeted services to support people living with complex health and care needs, such as helping people recover from a hospital stay and getting them back to independent living and also end of life care
- Intermediate care beds, providing assessment and rehabilitation before a long-term placement is considered
- Community bed-based services that are provided in an acute hospital, community hospital, residential care home, nursing home, standalone care facility, independent sector support, local authority or other bed-based settings
- Virtual wards that support patients, who would otherwise be in hospital, to receive the acute care and treatment they need in their own home. This includes preventing avoidable hospital admissions or supporting early discharge out of hospital
- Health promotion services, such as sexual health, school nursing and health visiting
- Specialist services, such as 0-19 services for children and young people, cardiac, respiratory, rehabilitation and therapies
- Prevention services, such as falls and podiatry services that undertake diabetic foot assessments.
The NHS’s Long-Term Plan makes clear the importance of community services to the health and care system, describing an ambition to boost out of hospital care, and care close to home. This focus is also recognised in our West Yorkshire Joint Forward Plan.
It is important to recognise that delivery of community services is often multidisciplinary and multi organisational and an essential part of many other organisations and colleagues work: namely acute hospitals, voluntary and community organisations, social care, primary care including community pharmacy, home care, hospice settings - I could go on. That list doesn't even mention the important role of unpaid carers, families and people receiving care who all have an important role in their health.
We know it isn't just 'community health' service providers that are keeping people well closer to where they live. That's why partnership working is key, especially around our efforts to alleviate system pressures, reduce health inequalities and improve population health and wellbeing outcomes for our residents through integrated services. We learn from each other to ensure we make the links between our work whenever possible.
So, who are the West Yorkshire Community Collaborative and what do we do together?
In 2021, the West Yorkshire Community Care Provider Collaborative was created to tackle common healthcare issues together. Our goal is to improve care, make the most of resources, and provide excellent care close to where people live.
The Collaborative is made up of the following organisations:
- Airedale NHS Foundation Trust
- Bradford District Care Trust
- Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust
- Harrogate and District NHS Trusts
- Leeds Community Healthcare Trust
- Locala Health and Wellbeing
- Mid Yorkshire Teaching Hospital Trust
- Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust.
We want to offer personalised care for everyone, ensuring a good quality of life. Our focus is on teamwork, and collectively dealing with challenges like money to make sure we make the most of the budgets we have to benefit people, workforce, technology, data, and buildings.
I've asked some of our collaborative members to share with you all some examples of the work our community provider teams deliver - they are rightly proud of their teams and the impact they make to our West Yorkshire and Harrogate and beyond residents. It’s also important to celebrate success – such as when the community specialist nurses team at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust were awarded ‘Team of the Year – delivering frontline services’ at Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership’s first ever ‘Celebrate as One’ Award. That's why we'll keep working together to make even more progress for people.
I would be pleased if anyone wanted to reach out to make any links and suggestions they think helpful to our Community Collaboratives work - feel free to contact me on MS Teams or email rebecca.spavin2@nhs.net. Equally, feel free to share this blog or link to our web page.
Thanks for taking the time to read about our West Yorkshire and Harrogate Community Health Services and have a wonderful weekend.
Becca
Supporting information
This video explains in an easy-to-understand way the Bradford District Care Trusts community dental service offer by providing a patient story - it’s a short but very worthwhile watch.
Community dental services provide specialist dental care for children and adults who cannot visit a general dental practice because they have specific needs, for example, they may have a disability or need specialist care. There has long been a tradition of partnership working in West Yorkshire and the providers of community dental services are coming together to support, share and jointly design services that work for both our staff and West Yorkshire residents.
Several of our members have been working on services that take care closer to communities and support people to thrive were they live. Take a look at the examples from Leeds community Healthcare Enhance team, Locala clinical van, Bradford District Care Trusts Proactive Team and Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust work at the ‘Gathering place’.
The Growing Healthy Wakefield 0-19 service launched, which is delivered by Harrogate and District Foundation trust, launched an app last year in collaboration with Wakefield Families Together which is specifically tailored to the local area to ensure the healthcare information provided is relevant to people who live in the district. A great example of working across places and organisations for the benefit of our populations.
The collaborative efforts of colleagues in emergency operations centres (EOC) and area leadership teams, working in tandem with system partners, have facilitated the rapid and widespread implementation of this groundbreaking approach. Presently, over 30 distinct urgent community response, GP, and falls teams across Yorkshire and the Humber embrace this streamlined method of handling calls, showcasing the robust support and synergy within the community healthcare system. Since December 2022, EOC teams have made more than 7,000 successful referrals through the 'Push' system.
Alongside all this business as usual ‘work’, thespians at Yorkshire Ambulance Service have produced a 90-second film in the style of a 1940s public information broadcast that plays on British stereotypes. It may be tongue-in-cheek but has a serious message – if you see someone who has collapsed and isn’t breathing, be assertive and start CPR. The film, funded by the Yorkshire Ambulance Service Charity, encourages people to learn the vital skills of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and was released to mark Restart a Heart Day on 16 October 2023.
What else has been happening this week?
Digital weight management programme for NHS staff
Thousands of NHS colleagues have signed up to the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme and are seeing the benefits to their lives.
The programme offers online access to weight management plans for NHS staff living with unhealthy weight or obesity.
See the NHS DWMP pages for more information.
The West Yorkshire Staff Bank is now live
Launched this week, the Staff Bank is a partnership between Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust and South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. Staff who join will have access to more shifts in mental health, learning disability and autism services across the NHS in West Yorkshire, and other areas including Barnsley and York. The Bank will provide greater flexibility and choice for those who join it and increase the pool of well-trained and reliable workers available to fill any given shift. This will help the Trusts to get more temporary workers to where they’re needed most, ensuring that staffing levels remain safe and quality of care is maintained.
Initially, the West Yorkshire Staff Bank will be used to cover nurse and health support worker shifts in inpatient areas, with plans to extend this in the future. To find out more visit the new West Yorkshire Staff Bank webpage.
Racism causes poor mental health and prevents people accessing support, says new report from Centre for Mental Health
Experiencing racism increases a person’s chances of having poor mental health but also makes it harder for them to get the right support, according to a new report from Centre for Mental Health.
The report, Pursuing racial justice in mental health, is based on research in Bradford District and Craven on the ways in which local voluntary and community organisations support people with their mental health. It finds that racism not only causes poor mental health in the first place, it also stops people getting into services and impedes their recovery. Research shows that racism, in its many manifestations, can cause psychological trauma, anxiety and depression. But it also stops people from getting help when they need it. You can read more here.
National Apprenticeship Week 2024
Leeds and York Partnership Foundation Trust (LYPFT) is proud to work with partners across the city and wider area to develop apprenticeships. They have been working together to ensure that they can address the skills shortages in the organisation and the wider region. This has included using their levy funding to support the wider system. Working together has helped significantly towards achieving LYPFT’s and Leeds’ workforce and apprenticeship goals. Learn more on the website.
Improving people’s lives using a population health management (PHM) approach and social prescribing
A new film shows how the voluntary sector in West Yorkshire is improving people’s lives using a population health management (PHM) approach and social prescribing. The film shows how older people are supported with issues including isolation and frailty by delivering social prescribing activities. Watch the film.
Adversity, Trauma and Resilience Knowledge Exchange 2024 now taking bookings
Registration for our Adversity, Trauma and Resilience Knowledge Exchange 2024 is now open. The event will run over three days from Tuesday 5 March to Thursday 7 March. Day one and two are virtual, run from 9:30 till 4:30 and you can join sessions during the day to best suit your needs. The third day will be face-to-face from 10 till 3 at The Manor, Drighlington, and places are limited. Book your place on the Knowledge Exchange web portal. This will be the fourth Knowledge Exchange, run in partnership with the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Partnership.
West Yorkshire people’s experience of end-of-life care - a collection of stories
NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board Palliative and End of Life Care (PEoLC) Programme commissioned Healthwatch to engage with residents of West Yorkshire on their experiences of end-of-life care services.
The West Yorkshire PEoLC Programme is committed to developing an end-of-life care vision to ensure people receive the support they need and can die in a place of their choice, with consideration given to what and who matters to them. The programme wants this vision to be informed by people’s experiences, positive or otherwise, and will include these within their health needs assessment for end-of-life care across West Yorkshire.
‘Multi Cancer Blood Test Programme’ - new name for cancer blood test pilot phase
The potential pilot phase of an innovative blood test currently being trialled which could spot more than 50 types of cancer has been given a new name.
The Galleri test – made by healthcare company GRAIL - is a single multi-cancer early detection blood test that is currently being assessed in the NHS-Galleri trial. This is a randomised control trial in England which aims to establish whether screening with the test reduces the incidence of late-stage cancer, when used in asymptomatic patients and combined with existing NHS cancer screening programmes.
What has previously been referred to as the NHS-Galleri Interim Implementation Pilot (‘NHS IIP’ ‘IIP’ or ‘the pilot’) or the ‘NHS-Galleri Pilot’ would offer up to one million Galleri multi-cancer early detection tests to asymptomatic people in select areas of England (including parts of West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance footprint) for two years from summer 2024 – providing early data from the current randomised trial are successful.
The NHS England National Cancer Programme is expected to receive interim results from the NHS[1]Galleri trial in April of this year and subject to those results, intends to deliver the pilot in conjunction with delivery partners including Cancer Alliances, NHS Digital and Grail.
The ‘NHS Galleri Interim Implementation Pilot’ and ‘NHS Galleri Pilot’ were internal working names to be used as placeholders, until a public-facing name was finalised.
They have now been replaced by a new name for the pilot programme: the Multi Cancer Blood Test Programme. This title will be accompanied by the strapline ‘Piloting a new way for the NHS to find cancer early’ and a set of key messages about the pilot to ensure the public are educated and informed about the programme. The name and strapline were shaped by invaluable insight from focus groups, which have helped identify which terms and names were understandable and important to the audience for the pilot programme.
An early brand/style guide is available on FutureNHS here to support use of the new name and this will be developed further over time. It must always be made clear that the Multi Cancer Blood Test Programme is not standard of care.
NHS West Yorkshire Integrate Care Board – Dentistry and Oral Health Reference Group
The West Yorkshire Dental Reference Group met for the second time on Monday, with colleagues from Healthwatch, people with experience of working in the profession and voluntary and community organisation who have a passion for ensuring fair access to NHS dental care for children, adults and vulnerable patient groups (for example, homeless people, refugees and asylum seekers, and people living in care homes). There were discussions on what support could look like for people receiving care in mental health settings, and via home care support etc and how best we could maximise the use of the full dental budget. The need for and access to urgent dental care was also covered.
Since the last meeting we have taken the decision to enable practices to deliver 110% of their contracted activity levels where they are able to do so. This is in addition to our £6.5m investment plan. As part of our investment plan, we have secured two practices in each local authority area to deliver additional sessions per week for children living in our highest need areas, two additional providers of services for refugees and asylum seekers, and one provider in each local authority area to support waiting list validation and treat priority patients.
There was a conversation around dental care for people who cannot afford to pay, and recognition that this often leads to people contacting NHS111. The importance of oral health education was also discussed. Over the coming weeks and months our efforts are focused on planning for the next financial year to make sure we maximise the use of our financial resources again. This also help us to sustainably transform services to support increased access. Flexible commissioning work will help to take this approach forward as well as looking at workforce with links to national priorities. It was clear that people working in the profession want to make a positive difference to people’s lives, and that there are steps we can take to enable this which build on our work to date – recognising the national action required.
Nine exciting health innovations selected for Yorkshire and Humber Boot Camp
Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber’s Propel@YH Boot Camp, a five-day digital health accelerator programme, is delighted to welcome nine Nordic SMEs to the UK, who will bring innovative HealthTech solutions to the region’s population. The Boot Camp builds on our successful UK-focused six month Propel@YH programme and seeks to bring the best health innovations from around the world into the UK, with the Yorkshire and Humber region being the first to make use of them.
Innovations chosen for the 2024 Nordic Boot Camp included a test used to monitor disease activity in patients with Irritable Bowel Disease, a device that assists in the clinical evaluation and triage of intracranial injuries and an innovation that assesses ADHD symptoms in children. Find out more about the Propel@YH Boot Camp.
Suicide prevention – new podcast launching
From Monday we will be promoting a new podcast series aimed at support staff working with people in mental health crisis across West Yorkshire. The five-episode series, called ‘Surviving Crisis: Learning from Lived Experience’ has been created by volunteers on our Suicide Prevention Coproduction Project, who all have experiences of suicidal crisis.
The series uses insights from frontline health and care staff who were asked in advance to share their thoughts on what they would like discussed.
Listen to the podcasts online on the suicide prevention website.
West Yorkshire Healthier Together – measles information and advice
The West Yorkshire Healthier Together is a free website developed by local healthcare professionals to help parents and carers keep their children safe and healthy. The online advice compliments local advice given across health and care services. The homepage of the website has been updated to include a link to the measles page. Due to the rise of measles cases and UKHSA recently declaring a national incident, please continue to share these links far and wide.
New episode of the 'Can You See Me?' podcast out now
In episode 2 of the 'Can You See Me?' podcast, host Fatima Khan-Shah, West Yorkshire Inclusivity Champion, challenges the phrase "what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger" and instead asks "are you tired of being resilient?"
Guests on this episode are Kim Shutler, CEO at The Cellar Trust, Selina Ullah, Chair of Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and Emmerline Irving, Head of Improving population Health for the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership.
The 'Can You Hear Me?' (now 'Can You See Me?') podcast series was created to give voice to the diverse talent working to improve health and care for people in West Yorkshire, and is produced and presented by members of the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership's Strategic Race Equality Network and colleagues from the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership.
You can watch this podcast on YouTube or listen to it on Soundcloud from Monday.
‘Find Out How You Really Are’ campaign to launch
‘Find Out How You Really Are’ is a brand new health awareness and call to action campaign and will launch across West Yorkshire on Monday 5 February 2024. The campaign aims to increase the awareness of risk factors for health conditions including diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease (CVD) and gives people the opportunity to take steps to understand and reduce their risk of developing diabetes and experiencing a heart attack or stroke. The Partnership has teamed up with a host of local and national partners including prominent sporting clubs to help us to reach followers, fans, and local people alike.