Hello everyone.
This winter has stretched services across the health and social care sector, as we’ve experienced huge demand across every part of the system. These past few months have been the busiest on record for A&E attendances and the most serious ambulance callouts. Primary care, for example GPs and walk-in services, have also been dealing with very high levels of needs and have had to prioritise urgent and same day care. Pharmacy, community and social care services have similarly been under intense and prolonged pressure.
Throughout this period, health and care staff across every sector, including the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, have been working and continue to work extremely hard to support and care for people. We thank each one of them for all they’re doing to keep people safe and well, around the clock, every single day.
The winter period is always challenging as demand for services tends to increase significantly with the onset of cold weather and flu – and this year, COVID, strep A, and other seasonal illnesses. However, in recent years, this pressure has been building not just at winter but throughout the year.
That’s why it’s so important that people get the care they need in the right place and at the right time. But navigating the healthcare system isn’t always straightforward, so the Partnership has developed and refined a public behaviour change campaign to help people choose the right service. Last November, the Partnership launched its ‘Together We Can’ winter campaign. Now in its second year, the campaign helps people access health and care services at the right time and place. It also encourages people to choose well and to opt for convenient self-care, where safe to do so during the winter months.
Led by the urgent and emergency care programme, the campaign has been built on data, insight and user testing. Simple, consistent messaging in a variety of languages and formats encourages people to come forward and not to delay if they need help or are concerned about their physical or mental health. It also ensures people understand which service to use, for example when they should use NHS 111 or go to their local pharmacy or their GP practice.
One of the groups we particularly wanted to target this year was parents and carers of young children, so the West Yorkshire Healthier Together website is now included in the ‘Together We Can’ signposting campaign. The website has been developed with clinicians, and gives consistent, accurate and trustworthy healthcare advice to parents, carers and young people. It was launched earlier in the year and has been a valuable resource this winter, particularly as it was swiftly updated to include reliable Strep A advice.
‘Together We Can’ has been promoted through adverts on Heart FM, targeted paid for online advertising on Google, YouTube, Spotify and Facebook and iVan advertising. Interim reports show that the campaign had more than 113,000 video views and the website had more than 15,630 new users during the online promotion. These are really positive results that exceed the average for some channels, and we’re very pleased that the campaign has been shared so widely across the Partnership and has been seen by so many people.
We’re really keen to keep the important campaign messages about getting help from the right service in the public eye, so please share via any channels or networks you have - Togetherwe-can.com. Please also make use of the website if you, your friends or family become unwell, and remember that despite the challenges facing services, it’s vitally important that people who need urgent medical care for a life-threatening illness or injury do seek help without delay. Care for life threatening or serious illness or injury will always be prioritised.
Above all, we need to remember that we’re all here to help each other and that we need to be kind to ourselves and one another. We know that when services are extremely busy, it can be frustrating for people accessing care as well as for staff. But it’s really important that people recognise we’re all here to help each other and the importance of all round understanding and kindness.
Have a good weekend.
Adam
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