In March 2024, just over a year ago, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership became the first integrated care system (ICS) in England to adopt the Keep it Local approach.

In signing up to the six Keep it Local (KiL) principles, the ICS joined our five local authorities in West Yorkshire, already committed to creating better services that reduce long-term costs and strengthen the local economy.

In West Yorkshire, we felt the KiL framework provided a clear and effective approach for us as an ICS to achieve our priorities, unlocking the power of community through the six KiL principles:

  • Think about the whole system not individual service silo
  • Co-ordinate services at a neighbourhood level
  • Increase local spend to invest in the local economy
  • Focus on prevention now to save costs tomorrow
  • Commit to your community and proactively support local organisations
  • Commission services simply and collaboratively so they are ‘local by default'

These principles and the practical guidance provided by Locality on implementing them within ICSs, provided us with a system wide approach to implementing the government’s plans. Those plans are to shift the NHS to a community-based and prevention-focussed ‘neighbourhood health system’ by committing to prioritising commissioning, working with and supporting local VCSE organisations.

Building on the strong foundations already in place in West Yorkshire, we have worked with colleagues across the system to apply the principles in practice. And to explore what we can do differently that will enable more consistent and simplified cross system processes, increase investment in our local economy, and save time and energy for us all, whilst delivering improved health outcomes for the population.

So, what have we done?

A couple of the highlights of what we have achieved in year one:

  • Developed a maturer understanding of the ICB’s investment into the VCSE sector including at place and system levels. This has included building a more consistent understanding of the VCSE and how it is defined in contracting and procurement, alongside analysing investment in the sector.
  • Applied a Keep it Local approach to ICB contracting and procurement. This has included adapting the way we assess tenders under the Provider Selection Regime criteria to ensure we consider social value in each of the six dimensions.

What next?

There is an opportunity to explore what being a Keep it Local ICS means in West Yorkshire in the context the new ICB model and how it operates as a ‘strategic commissioner’. Clearly the work we have already done around commissioning and procurement and how we consider intrinsic social value in allocating funding and commissioning services, could be effectively applied across the system as our ICB moves forward.

Continuing to think about how we embed the Keep it Local principles in the development of integrated neighbourhood health and how we use this approach to maximise opportunity and impact is critical.

Everything we have done so far has been about strengthening system working, making the most effective use of our resources and investing in local organisations who are most connected to our communities. Our hope is that within West Yorkshire, we will continue to build on this work and that the Keep it Local principles will be a cornerstone of our future ways of working.