Posted on: 31 January 2020
Hello my name is Jacqui,
For some people Kirklees can feel an artificial construct and what is more important to them is their local town or village within which they live. For others, Kirklees is a real place and they relate to it as much as they do their local town or village.
As a Council, this reality has shaped our approach over the last couple of years and our adoption of place-based working. This is partly about the way we engage with local communities through the Place Standard Tool. The tool provides a simple framework to structure conversations about place. It allows us to think about the physical elements of a place, including its buildings, spaces, and transport links. It also allows us to consider the social aspects, for example whether people feel they have a say in decision-making.
We have used this tool to inform our thinking about individual areas, partly about the devolution of operational delivery of services to a more local level and critically, about changing the nature of our relationship with local people to one of a ‘working with not doing to’. Depending on the level of freedom that they are given to develop in a way that reflects local needs, Primary Care Networks have the potential to be a powerful part of this mix.
You can see an example here about one of our local area’s Golcar. Over 200 people took part in the conversations which took place in community buildings, on the streets, in school playgrounds and in shopping areas.
Working alongside our health partners, we have adopted seven partnership outcomes that reflect the priorities of local people in all our areas. We are still working through how, in a particularly complex health and care system, we plan and deliver against these outcomes at both a local community and at a Kirklees (place) level. This challenges our collective ability to step outside the perspectives of individual organisations and to understand, in a holistic way, what is important to local people. This may well give us answers that aren’t consistent with our view of the world or what we think is the best way of achieving a particular outcome.
Local Government has a strong tradition of sector-led improvement through the use of a Peer Challenge approach. Peer challenge is a proven tool for improvement. It is a process commissioned by a council and involves a small team of local government officers and councillors spending time at the council as peers to provide challenge and share learning. Kirklees Council has benefitted from a number of these at both a service specific and corporate level in recent years.
I saw the adoption of a similar approach by our West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership (also known as an Integrated Care System or ICS) as a really positive development. And so I valued Kirklees being the second area, after Wakefield, to welcome a Partnership Peer Review team to come and look at our local system and how well we are collectively achieving better outcomes for local people – which is after all what we are all about.
The Peer Review was a good opportunity to test our progress in making this a reality. It was a positive experience and as one might expect, it identified areas which we should quite rightly be making a positive noise about instead of just quietly getting on with it in typical Kirklees fashion. It also highlighted areas where we need to put more collective effort in if we want to become a really high performing system and have the same level of interest and commitment to Kirklees as a place.
Kirklees is firmly focused on the future and our refresh of the Kirklees Health and Wellbeing plan has been reshaped by the Peer Review feedback. It was good to see the Partnership’s approach to 2020/21 operational plans taking a ‘place-based’ rather than ‘organisational’ focus - and the implications of this being actively discussed at the System Leadership Executive Group last month.
I’d recommend the Peer Review process to other systems, whilst reminding colleagues that ultimately, it is only as good as the commitment the whole system makes to both the process and to making change happen afterwards.
It’s always helpful to hear people’s views and as a council I like to feel we are a listening organisation – aiming to do the very best for everyone living in Kirklees, whether in a local town, village or in their local neighbourhood.
Have a good weekend everyone,
Jacqui
What else has been happening this week?
Young Carers Awareness Day 2020
The Partnership was proud to support Young Carers Awareness Day on Thursday. There are an estimated 260,000 carers living across West Yorkshire and Harrogate in Bradford, Airedale and Craven; Calderdale, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield.
This number includes thousands of young carers taking on a caring role from as early as five years old, helping to look after someone in their family who is ill, disabled or misuses drugs or alcohol. Caring for someone can be isolating, worrying and stressful. For young carers, this can negatively impact on their experiences and outcomes in education, having a lasting effect on their life chance. Support for carers is a priority for us all. Supporting young carers is one of four of the carer programme areas; the others are primary care, workforce, and acute hospital care.
Supported by local carer organisations, young carers, and celebrities, including Faye Tozer (from Steps and Strictly Come Dancing); Paul Chuckle; Billy Pearce; Stevie Ward from Leeds Rhinos and England Rugby League Player, the day was a great success. You can read more on the Partnership website and watch these short films from our partners, participants and celebrity supporters. You can also read Fatima Khan-Shah's 'celebrating and supporting young carers' blog which she wrote for the Department of Health and Social Care.
The final draft of the Partnership’s Five Year Plan, ‘Better Health and Wellbeing for Everyone, is now available to read and download. It sets out how we want to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone living across West Yorkshire and Harrogate over the next five years and beyond.
The five year plan section on our website has the publication and supporting information, which includes an animation, easy read version, audio and British Sign Language (BSL) film version.
Patient driven service improvement earns Cancer Alliance national award nomination
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance has been shortlisted, in conjunction with national charity Breast Cancer Now, for an improvement programme which puts patients at the heart of service change.
Breast Cancer Now's Service Pledge, and its work with WYH Cancer Alliance, has been nominated for the ‘Best Not for Profit in Partnership with the NHS’ in this year's Health Services Journal Partnership Awards, which recognise outstanding dedication in the improvement of healthcare.
The Service Pledge is an innovative programme designed to deliver positive and lasting positive change to everyone’s experience of breast cancer. It brings together patients and local healthcare professionals in hospitals across the area to design and deliver tangible improvements, which are then kept under review and monitored for their effectiveness. Learn more here.
Partnership with the Cancer Alliance, which began in June 2017, has facilitated the sharing of learning and good practice across the acute hospital Trusts in West Yorkshire and Harrogate area and the driving of innovation at scale across its constituent organisations.
Breast Cancer Now, the UK’s largest breast cancer charity, provides insight into the latest research, most up-to-date guidelines, evidence of best practice, and detailed understanding of the needs and priorities of people affected by breast cancer, informed by feedback from those who access its information and support. It has 16 years' experience of improving breast cancer services across the country, to create an approach that is centrally organised but owned by those on the frontline.
Examples of change through the WYH programme include reduced waiting times for chemotherapy at Airedale General Hospital with the provision of a chemotherapy bus; tailored information packs at Leeds Teaching Hospitals, with specific info by tumour type and the facilities to add in more at each treatment stage; improved communication around a single point of contact Clinical Coordinator at Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust and a video for GPs, and an update of the whole care pathway for breast cancer patients at Mid Yorkshire Hospitals Trust.
More information about the service pledge in West Yorkshire and Harrogate and the awards can be found here.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance – Optimal Pathways
Administrative and project support for the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance Optimal Pathways groups has transferred to a new team, hosted by Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust. The team, led by Programme Manager Randolph Haggerty, will help to support and progress the work already being delivered by eight tumour site Optimal Pathway Groups, with a further two to be established. The groups are bringing together clinicians, managers, commissioners and patients to ensure the achievement of best possible outcomes for patients. They take a whole pathway approach from prevention through treatment to living with and beyond cancer. The groups are led by Clinical Directors, and their work is being overseen by the newly-constituted Clinical Advisory Board. Programme management oversight remains with Ingrid Ablett-Spence, Cancer Alliance Optimal Pathway Programme Manager, and Charlotte Houston, Project Manager, who are working closely with the Clinical Directors and the new team to ensure a smooth transition.
For all future enquiries relating to the Optimal Pathway Groups, please contact 07881 359133. If you require further information, please email Ingrid: i.
Health organisations in Wakefield have signed a new tobacco control declaration
A declaration was signed at the Town Hall following a meeting of Wakefield’s Health and Wellbeing (HWB) Board – where partners prioritised helping people live longer, with less inequality. Partners have agreed to create environments that support quitting through implementing smoke free policies, supporting a local tobacco control plan to address the causes and impacts of tobacco, and protecting tobacco control work from the commercial interests of the tobacco industry. Smoking related disease remains the single greatest cause of preventable death and disease in England – killing more than 80,000 people every year. About half of all lifelong smokers will die prematurely, losing on average about 10 years of life. In Wakefield, smoking is responsible for around a third of deaths while 4,700 annual hospital admissions are attributable to smoking. It costs the district £95 million a year.
Personalised care event for people with learning disabilities
The first of a series of events will take place today (Friday) to improve the health of people with learning disabilities living in Keighley. Those going along can have a free health check from GPs and other medical professionals. They will also have the opportunity to try several mixed ability sports, meet new people, and talk to social prescribers and link workers who can offer a host of activities and services in the local area. Social prescribing involves helping people to improve their health and wellbeing by connecting them to community groups, activities and peers who can offer support. The work forms part of the Partnership’s Personalised Care Programme where more people and their carers will be supported to manage their physical and mental health and wellbeing, and make informed decisions and choices when their health changes. One of our Partnership priorities is increasing the number of health checks for people with learning disabilities. More events are being planned.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Healthy Hearts
The West Yorkshire and Harrogate Healthy Hearts team has recently released new results of the hypertension work stream. Phase one of the project focuses on identifying people who have hypertension but are not yet diagnosed, and then on improving blood pressure control for all hypertensive patients.
Since Jan 2019 to present, we have seen an increase of nearly 8,000 people with better controlled BP (under 80s). This is in addition to the +7,500 additional people on the hypertension register. That’s more than 15,000 clinical interventions, which is fantastic. These numbers, over the next five years could have the potential to prevent:
- 65 deaths
- 122 strokes
- 82 hearts attacks
Dr Youssef Beaini, West Yorkshire and Harrogate Healthy Hearts Clinical Lead and CVD Lead Bradford Clinical Commissioning Group, said: ‘I would like to say a big thank you to the clinical commissioning groups who have supported us with this project across West Yorkshire and Harrogate. And I would also like to say a big thank you to practices for all their hard work on the front line actually implementing this practical guidance’.
The WYH Healthy Hearts team continues to engage with GPs practices and provide more information about the resources available to support their work to tackle CVD. Resources are available here.
Please note that the Hypertension Guidance and Hypertension clinical searches have been recently been updated following a review of the latest NICE guidance and with some further guidance being included around Potassium levels. Please check the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Healthy Hearts website for the most recent versions.