This builds on our West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership’s approach since 2016 and our long-standing commitment to our mission, values and behaviours, ensuring that local people and communities are at the heart of how we design and deliver care. It's also how we work in partnership with our vibrant and diverse VCSE sector through our Power of Communities Programme, bringing together VCSE leaders to act as a catalyst for innovation, transformation and integration within the health and care system. This led to us becoming the first Keep it Local ICS in the country with a commitment to prioritise supporting, partnering with and commissioning local VCSE organisations and developing services so they are ‘local by default’.

So, what does it look like when we maximise the unique strengths of the VCSE sector in integrated neighbourhood health? We already have some fantastic examples of the ‘art of the possible’ that we can learn from in West Yorkshire, and the conditions and cultures needed for them to flourish:

Hospital to community: ‘Enhance’ is a VCSE-led programme in Leeds that provides tailored, non-clinical support for older people at home, reducing reliance on hospital and community health services. Delivered through partnerships with 19 primary care networks, it offers practical help, social connection, and wellbeing support to prevent deterioration and avoid unnecessary admissions. In 2023/24, Enhance supported over 1,000 people, easing pressure on overstretched clinical teams and improving quality of life. Independent evaluation by Leeds Beckett University found the programme delivered a return on investment of £1.51 for every £1 spent, demonstrating that shifting resources into community-based, person-centred support can deliver both better outcomes for the people we serve and better value.

Treatment to prevention: ‘Rethinking Pain’ is a community-based service for adults living with long-term pain in Bradford District and Craven. It enabled a joined up, accessible pain pathway that connects people’s clinical care with person-centred, holistic support in their community. Working with Keighley Healthy Living, not only are there fantastic stories of how they have changed people’s lives; research also shows that from working with 937 people they have saved the NHS almost £200,000 in 2023/24 through reductions in GP appointments, A&E attendances, outpatient appointments and mental health support. 

Analogue to digital: One Ummah Community CIC in Wakefield is a small grassroots VCSE organisation working to empower children, women and  families who have settled locally to improve their access to services and feel confident navigating a new culture. They recognised that digital exclusion from services was a huge risk for the people they served. Using Wakefield Council’s device gifting scheme they now have volunteers every Friday supporting over 50 people experiencing digital poverty to remove barriers from accessing services and support.

However, we know that these examples only a small snapshot of the intrinsic value of the VCSE sector. We know that VCSE organisations are a strength and asset in our neighbourhoods, bringing:

  • A unique understanding of the communities they serve that are essential to designing and delivering interventions focusing on the root causes of poor health that are more effective and sustainable.
  • An inherently integrated way of working with other organisations, funders and communities, being a catalyst for transformation to tackle health inequalities.
  • Resources to their local neighbourhood, whether in the form of staff and volunteers, maintaining and creating new assets like community centres or gyms that are trusted places, or drawing in and investing funding locally that only VCSE organisations can access

In West Yorkshire, we know that a well-supported and embedded VCSE sector is essential to creating the conditions for integrated neighbourhood health to put the three shifts into practice. Time and time again, we see that when we work in a genuinely integrated way aligned to our mission, values and behaviours – we create innovative and transformative ways of working that bring together people, communities and services to generate solutions that change neighbourhoods for the better.  We know that “the process you use to get to the future, is the future you get”.

Thank you for reading.