This week’s blog comes from Kirsty Jowett, a Lived Experience Manager working for NHS England

Posted on: 25 August 2023

Hello everyone, my name is Kirsty Jowett and I’m a Lived Experience Manager working for NHS England. I feel very humbled and privileged to feature in this publication. Since I joined NHS England in February 2022, I’ve built some incredible relationships across West Yorkshire. I also feel lucky to call West Yorkshire my home. I’ve worked across the health and social care sector for almost 15 years (13 of those in West Yorkshire), and I’m so lucky to work alongside people who are truly passionate about making a difference to people and communities.

I began working in the sector due to my own personal lived experiences of caring for my grandma with vascular dementia. I really wanted to understand the true workings of the sector, to build a bigger picture and perspective to help me and my family provide the best care.

Following a short period working in the private sector, I secured a role with my local council working in intermediate care. It became apparent to me very quickly, that this was more than ‘just a job’ to me. I loved working with people and their families to improve quality of life. It was ingrained within me, and I’ve never looked back since. Having been in the NHS for ten years this year, I can truly say I feel inspired and positive for the future of health and care. Working through the pandemic and seeing the resilience, courage, and commitment of colleagues around me, is testament to the incredible organisation we have in the NHS.

In what I can only describe now as my dream role, I feel like my professional and personal journeys have all led me to where I am today. I love what I do, involving people and communities to help design health and care services for the future is something I’d always hoped would become my reality.

I continue to advocate for personalised care, alongside the opportunity to help and support others to interact with services to help shape the future. The Peer Leadership Development programme was a revelation to me when I joined NHS England. It felt like this was the ‘missing piece’ that could’ve really helped me and my family when we needed it. And now I was in the lucky position to be able to promote and champion this incredible opportunity for others to join and benefit from.

Powerless shifts to sharing power

The programme encourages people living with long term conditions and/or carers to join, to develop their own knowledge, skills and confidence on the health and care sector. It really empowers people to work in partnership with services, on a national, regional and local level. The programme recognises that we need to view people with lived experience as equal partners and enables people to unlock their own innate skills for co-production. The role has enabled me to connect with many people across the sector, in addition to people living with long-term conditions and carers who hopefully felt as I did when I first heard about it, inspired, hopeful and excited to join. I completed all the steps in the programme, and in spite of working for the NHS I learnt so much.

I am so proud of myself for sharing insights about my work and stressing the importance of personalised care for people with a learning disability - Catherine Horbury, Peer Support Workeer, Horizons

One of the incredible people I was fortunate to support to join and complete the steps to become a peer leader through the Peer Leadership Development Programme was a wonderful young lady called Catherine Horbury.

Catherine lives in Wakefield, and truly understands and empathises with a lot of the challenges people face in advocating for their own health and care needs. Catherine is a true ambassador for personalised care, and always provides that constructive feedback and challenge to ensure that reasonable adjustments are made, particularly to support people living with a learning disability.

Kirsty Jowett_Believe you can and you're halway there Catherine has her own lived experience of living with a learning disability, therefore she can really offer that personalised perspective, and helps those who don’t feel they have a voice and choice within their care. Catherine is now part of a local co-production group in Wakefield called Stronger Together, in addition to being a peer support worker for NHS Horizons.

Since Catherine completed the programme, her confidence has improved greatly. She also recently attended the Health Inequalities Summit where she was fortunate enough to meet the Duchess of Edinburgh, in addition to being awarded the ‘Wakefield District Health and Care Partnership Outstanding Achievement Award’.

Peer leaders across the country truly are making a difference. Collectively they were involved in over 600 pieces of work nationally and have influenced over 20 programmes of work at NHS England through 2022/23. If you’d like to find out more about the programme and how to get involved contact: england.pldp@nhs.net.

Thanks for reading,
Kirsty

What else has been happening this week?

Please speak up

On Friday 18 August, neonatal nurse Lucy Letby was found guilty of seven counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder for her actions at the Countess of Chester Hospital. Like us, you will have been affected by the guilty verdict on many levels. Rob Webster CEO for NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board wrote to all staff. You can read the letter on our website.

As an Integrated Care Board, we have a role in setting the culture within West Yorkshire.

This requires the right culture and the right infrastructure for us to succeed. In this case, we also have a clear role through our Local Maternity Neonatal System in ensuring safe and effective maternity services. As we adopt the actions that are required to address failings in this case, we will continue to support you, be professionally curious, keep the person at the centre of all we do and never forget our duty to safeguard patients and the public.

We have arrangements in place to support you and we will thank you for speaking up. Please speak about this verdict and its impact in your teams and with your line manager or professional leads. There is a range of support available via our wellbeing hub, as well as local health and care organisations.

NHS West Yorkshire meets in public for the first Annual General Meeting

The NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) will meet in public for the eighth time on Tuesday 19 September at The LIFE Centre, Wapping Road, Bradford, BD3 0EQ. On the same day it will hold its first Annual General Meeting (AGM).

Members of the public are invited to join Board members for refreshments from 11.15am ahead of the AGM meeting starting at 12.30pm.

The AGM will be immediately followed by the ICB Board meeting – also held in public. The board has an Independent Chair, Cathy Elliott. Its Chief Executive is Rob Webster CBE. The meeting in public will include an update report from Cathy and Rob, as well as a focus on mental health services.

The board is part of the legislation set out in the Health and Care Act 2022, which came into force on 1 July 2022. It focuses on improving outcomes for people by addressing health inequalities, the difference in care received and effective use of budgets across the area. It is part of West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (WY HCP), an integrated care system.

The board’s role includes delivering the Joint Forward Plan for health and care services in West Yorkshire as part of the area’s five-year strategy. Most decisions about the circa £5billion budget and the services delivered locally are made in the five local places of West Yorkshire, via its strong local place partnerships in Bradford District and Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield District.

The board also works alongside care provider collaboratives, such as the West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts, the Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism Collaborative, Community Care Collaborative and hospices working together.

People are asked to contact westyorkshire.ics@nhs.net by 5.00pm on Tuesday 12 September if they would like to attend the AGM.
People can submit questions about items on the agenda of the main board meeting to westyorkshire.ics@nhs.net by 9.00am on Monday 18 September.
They can also call: 01924 317659 to submit questions or to book their place to attend.
Please note the papers won’t be live on the website until late afternoon on Monday 11 September 2023.

Board members visit Wakefield voluntary and community organisations (VCSE)

Board members visit to Wakefield voluntary and community organisations On Thursday 17 August, members of the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board spent a day visiting VCSE organisations across Wakefield District.

Starting at Grow Wakefield and their Portobello Allotments site, we met Andy and Chris who shared their work in establishing allotments in local communities. It was exciting to hear how local people were taking ownership of these facilities, and the positive impact on their health and wellbeing.

Eastmoor Community Project hosted us for a lunch with local VCSE leaders including from Alzheimer’s Society, Light Waves Community Trust, One Ummah Community CIC, Co-Active Arts, City of Sanctuary, Wakefield and District Society for Deaf People, Evergreen Active CIC, Wakefield District Sight Aid, Young Lives Consortium and Humanity 1st CIC. We had a chance to hear about their life-changing work, the current challenges they face and how they are making a difference to communities in Wakefield. Sustainability came up again and again, with short-term funding and contracts being a significant barrier to continuity of services and support in communities, and unsettling for staff and volunteers. Strengthening understanding and connectivity between health and the sector was also something attendees were keen to build.

We finished our day at BLESS, a charity serving the communities in Upton, Hemsworth and the surrounding area. We joined the group for an afternoon tea and bingo session. Although we weren’t too good at the bingo, we enjoyed the wonderful tea, and seeing so many older people who told us how vital this group was to their health and wellbeing. For most it is a lifeline, giving them social connection and something to look forward to every week.

A big thank you to NOVA Wakefield for organising the day, and to all the VCSE organisations who gave their time to speak to us and share their work.

NHS partners with Morrisons to put vital cancer awareness messaging on underwear labels

Dr Stewart Manning in front of a Morrisons supermarket Morrisons and the NHS are working together to put advice on underwear labels urging people to contact their GP practice if they spot potential symptoms of breast or testicular cancer.

The Nutmeg branded underwear featuring NHS advice will be in 240 Morrisons stores nationwide, initially in men’s boxer shorts and followed by crop top bras in the coming months.

The NHS guidance will be displayed on the fabric labels alongside the standard sizing and care information. There will also be a QR code on the packaging and tags linking customers through to more detailed information on breast and testicular cancer on the NHS website.

Morrisons is the first UK supermarket to rollout the new labels and the first-of-its-kind partnership for the NHS is the latest move in a significant drive to ensure people are aware of the signs and symptoms of cancer.

If people notice symptoms that could be cancer, they should contact their GP and come forward for checks as early as possible so they can get the all-clear, or in some cases, a cancer diagnosis sooner to give them the best chance of surviving the disease.

Symptoms of breast cancer can include a lump or change in the look, shape or feel of one or both breasts, while symptoms of testicular cancer can include painless swelling or a lump in one of the testicles or any change in shape or texture of the testicles.

National figures show that 91% of women survive for at least five years if diagnosed at an early stage of breast cancer, where the tumour is small (stage one), whereas this reduces to 39% where the cancer has spread to other parts of the body (stage four).

While nearly all men survive testicular cancer, if the cancer has spread, survival for five years or more can reduce to 65%.

Every life lost to suicide is one too many - become a suicide prevention champion

Launch of our Suicide Prevention Champions campaign

Our campaign to recruit Suicide Prevention Champions across West Yorkshire has now launched, urging everyone to sign up and join the effort to lower the area’s above-average suicide rate by taking an active role in challenging stigma and raising awareness.

It encourages people to learn more about suicide prevention and turn that into action, through a pledge.

It’s quick and simple to join – just watch a 20 minute video (ZSA’s Suicide Awareness film), think of your pledge – big or small - about how you plan to promote suicide prevention at home/in the community or at work and then fill in a short form to register. Visit: https://suicidepreventionwestyorkshire.co.uk/becomeachampion to find out more and to sign up!

Champions can have access to the latest suicide prevention news, resources, support services and information to help spread the word and continue to encourage action.

There are lots of graphics including posters, social media tiles, suggested social media posts, Teams background, email footer etc on the Champions toolkit page - please help us spread the word, including in and around World Suicide Prevention Day (Sept 10th).

Steve Mawson, new CEO for Kirklees Council

Steve Mawson will take up the top job at Kirklees Council following the approval of his appointment at a meeting of elected members held on Friday 18 August. Councillors led the search for the new Chief Executive after incumbent Chief Executive, Jacqui Gedman, announced her retirement in March.

Steve will join Kirklees from Gloucestershire County Council where he currently works as Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Director of Corporate Resources. His responsibilities at Gloucestershire include setting the council’s long-term vision as well as responsibility for the authority's finances, IT, property portfolio, communications and human resources. Mr Mawson also has 15 years’ experience with Doncaster Council where he served as Chief Financial Officer.

Steve is due to take up his post at the beginning of October and is already working with the council’s senior leadership to ensure a seamless transition into the role.

Stay well this bank holiday weekend

Feeling well out of hours? Get the advice you need - call 111 As we head towards the last bank holiday of the summer when many people will be out and about, please help the NHS by planning ahead for your healthcare needs as much as you can.

Bank holiday weekends are always a particularly busy time for health and care services in the region. Our staff will be working throughout, but services are likely to be extremely busy, especially as there is planned industrial action by consultants on the run up to the long weekend. So please, help us help you by choosing the right service if you need support during this time.

If you take regular medication, check you have enough for the week ahead and if you need more, please order and collect it before the bank holiday.

Keeping a well-stocked medicine cabinet can help you treat minor illnesses or injuries at home. There’s more advice on togetherwe-can.com or you can ask for advice at your local pharmacy. You can also find a pharmacy near you which will be open over the bank holidays.

If you’re the parent or carer of young children you can also find trusted health advice by visiting the West Yorkshire Healthier Together website. Mental health support will continue to be available throughout the bank holiday period please visit togetherwe-can.com/mental-health for details of local services.

If you or someone close to you needs medical help, please get advice about the most appropriate treatment option by using 111 online (111.nhs.uk) or calling 111 if you don’t have access to the internet. Remember 999 and A&E departments are for the most serious or life-threatening injuries or illnesses. Read more on the website.

Race for Recipients 2023

Race for recipients - decorative graphic ‘Race for Recipients' challenges you to celebrate organ donation - the gift of life. Organ donation teams and representatives around the country will ‘Race for Recipients’ from 6am on Saturday 16 September until midnight on Sunday 24 September.

This year there will be individual and team targets to progress through and earn achievement awards. Your level of fitness is not important and you don't need a team to join.

All ‘Race for Recipients’ targets represent meaningful milestones. For example, targets include traveling 9km over the week to represent the 9 lives that can be saved by one donor all the way up to 7,000km to represent the 7,000 people currently waiting for a lifesaving transplant in the UK.

The 50,000km regional milestone represents the number of people living today with a transplant in the UK. You can sign up and find out more here.

Trust launches myHeart app

The cardiac rehabilitation team at Airedale Hospital are offering a brand-new app to the region specially designed to support patients with heart conditions during their recovery.

MyHeart is an app designed by my mhealth which supports patients with heart disease or who are recovering from cardiac surgery and helps to empower patients to manage their heart conditions for a lifetime.

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