Posted on: 24 June 2022
Hello, my name is Katherine.
In 2019 I attended the British Thoracic Society Winter Conference. Despite the positive messages of improvement and change, there were many examples of inertia, unacceptable respiratory care, and untimely deaths. One such example was one of the sessions on health inequality where the speaker cited Bradford City as a ‘special outlier’. You can guess that it wasn’t singled out for its outstanding results.
As a GP and respiratory lead working in Bradford I felt saddened that it had been singled out and I was aware of the sniggers in the room. I remember walking back to my hotel that evening and asking myself if there was any point in carrying on. I had just been unofficially appointed the West Yorkshire Respiratory Lead for the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership and started to question whether I could truly make a difference. I picked over my journey to this role of responsibility. I kept coming back to one moment on this journey. The moment where I participated in the first-ever National Review into Asthma Deaths (NRAD). The first patient we discussed, after her last trip to the asthma nurse, was found dead with a blue inhaler gripped in her hand. She was the same age as me. It still makes me feel sick when I think of the terror she must have experienced as her airways closed shut for good in the last minutes of her life. She was let down at every stage of her care.
I left the conference with renewed energy and verve and have not looked back. This story is my WHY and the reason I get up every morning with a continued passion to support the patients across West Yorkshire and nationally in my roles as Primary Care lead in Wales for the National Asthma and COPD Audit Programme and as incoming chair of the Primary Care Respiratory Society.
Every decision we make as part of the West Yorkshire Respiratory Network affects our clinical colleagues but ultimately our patients. I hold my hand up as somebody who doesn’t always truly embed the patient voice in everything I do, and I know I must try harder. So many decisions are made without asking patients what they want, and we need to do better. I am determined to use my current training from NHS England / Improvement on the Public and Patient Voice to drive forward webinars for patients with respiratory disease and a podcast to showcase patient stories in West Yorkshire and truly get our patients voices heard.
My job is made so much easier by the wonderful colleagues with who I am surrounded. There are too many people to mention but a special mention to Charlotte Coles, Kath Heliwell, Lisa Chandler, Leigh Ainsworth, Alison Courtney, and Charlotte Thornton who work tirelessly alongside me and are slowly teaching and supporting me to say no, to ask for help, and delegate; they have an unenviable task!
I am under no illusion that the next few years aren’t going to be easy in the world of respiratory. The pandemic has done untold damage to the respiratory population of West Yorkshire. I feel we have always been the poor cousin to diabetes and cardiovascular disease, under-funded and under-prioritised for years.
Together with my colleagues in secondary care and the community we stand determined to get our message across, shout it from the rooftops and ensure that every patient with respiratory disease in West Yorkshire has access to timely and accurate diagnosis, pulmonary rehabilitation, knows WHY they are taking their inhalers, HOW to take them, WHEN to take them and WHAT to do in an emergency. And if a speaker at this year’s BTS dares to single out the care of patients in Bradford, or other areas in West Yorkshire, I will make sure I call them out and let them know for a fact that it certainly isn’t through a lack of dedication and passion from those that care.
Thank you for reading and have a good weekend,
Katherine
What else has been happening this week?
Health Inequalities Academy - one year on
This week we held our two-day Health Inequalities Academy ‘one year on’ event, bringing together partners to explore progress and share learning. The event highlighted the work taking place to improve the lives of the most disadvantaged people living in West Yorkshire.
Over 500 people joined to hear from a fantastic range of local, regional and national speakers. The aim of the academy is to support everyone working across the partnership, whatever their role, to see what part we can all play in creating a more equitable system. By acting as a forum to raise awareness and bringing people together, the academy provides support and showcases interventions which are being implemented locally and can be adapted across the whole of West Yorkshire and beyond.
That included hearing about training being delivered through the academy to improve system capability, the vital part played by the voluntary community and social enterprise sector, the role of digital in reducing health inequalities and schemes to support young carers and improve migrant health. Too many highlights but special mention to the Bradford Reducing Inequalities in Communities Team for sharing their flagship population health management approach to closing stark health gaps in the area. A story of passion, creativity, courage and collaboration with around 11,500 people benefiting from projects.
The event looked at how the Health Inequality Academy has impacted on capability, capacity, and intelligence to address health inequalities across our places and system. We were taken on a journey as we reflected on where we’ve been and where we’re going ending with a question looking at the "I" of Inequality: what difference can I make in reducing inequalities?
Working together has been fundamental to what we have been able to achieve and provides a platform from which we can build, accelerate progress and improve people’s health for better futures. Although much has been progressed and there are examples of excellent practice, particularly around small level projects and short-term funding, we need to look at what we can do together to fundamentally change how we design and deliver services.
In this new era of health and care, we are all finding our way. It’s not a few of us doing this, it’s everyone working together. We have a mammoth task ahead, but we’re in a good position and there’s strength in partnership.
We’ll bring you the official evaluation results once we’ve closed the survey but anecdotal feedback has been extremely positive with attendees saying they found the day “insightful,” “uplifting,” “interesting” and thought provoking. Here’s a flavour of some of the comments:
- “The drive and passion is evident from everyone on here today.”
- “This discussion is really heartening.”
- “Absolutely amazing two days for people to learn so much from inspiring people.”
- “Very exciting work ahead around children and young people”.
For a full list of the programme and speakers see our event brochure. We’ll post the recordings and presentations from the day, on our events and webinar page. A huge thank you to all our organisers, presenters, panel members, workshop leads and to everyone who joined.
Every Sleep a Safe Sleep resource now available
This week (Wednesday 22 June), we launched a range of new staff guidance and training tools to help reduce the risk of the sudden and unexpected death of an infant (SUDI). The resources are aimed at colleagues who work with pregnant women and families where there are babies aged up to 12 months.
At least 300 infants still die suddenly and unexpectedly each year in England and Wales. We developed the resources as part of the local maternity system public health recommendations. Those recommendations recognised that healthcare colleagues are in a good position to support women and their babies before, during and after pregnancy.
The sudden and unexpected death of a baby is one of the most devastating tragedies that can happen to any family. By developing the training package, we hope to equip frontline workers with the skills they need to feel comfortable in having - what might be sensitive and meaningful - conversations about safer sleep practices with parents and carers, particularly those where additional vulnerabilities exist.
The resource package includes:
- a 55-minute webinar
- Every Sleep a Safe Sleep - multiagency risk minimisation guidance
- Safer Sleep Protective Factors Tool for Parent/Carer
- Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) Risk Minimisation Tool for Professionals
- Safer Sleep facilitator’s pack
- Safer Sleep participant’s pack
Colleagues tested the resources before the launch, and we used the feedback to make improvements. To find out about how to run a training session in your area, contact Valerie Mzizi: valerie.
Seeking patients’ views on delays to planned care caused by the pandemic
A report into the findings of the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership’s Planned Care Citizens’ Panel has been published today (24 June 2022), exactly one year after the panel met for the first time.
The feedback from all the panel meetings has been summarised in the report Seeking patients’ views on delays to planned care caused by the pandemic. It covers the main themes discussed at the panel meetings and includes the panel’s key recommendations. The report is a candid look at some of the discussions, often very upsetting, with the panel over the 12-week period and is a stark reminder of how extremely difficult things were one year ago. Because the picture is very different today, the report also highlights the significant progress being made in tackling the backlog as capacity for planned care services in West Yorkshire is increased week after week.
The Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism Partnership Board
The Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism Partnership Board (MHLDA) met last week and considered several key projects:
- The NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board is appointing sector representation for their Board, and MHLDA Programme CEO Dr Sara Munro has been nominated to be the sector representative for MHLDA, subject to formal confirmation from the integrated care board. At the same time discussions continue to take place to shape the relationship between the regional and national teams.
- Dr Sharon Prince and Dr Gail Harrison presented an update of the Psychological Professions Workforce Strategy and highlighted the importance of cultural, long-term change requiring committed resource, with some significant risks to expansion of the workforce. That said, West Yorkshire appears to be leading the way against other regions in terms of support for leadership of the Psychological Professions. The workstream is linking into psychology graduates to promote career opportunities/pathways. Central capacity and resourcing in careers engagement is being discussed at system level. Future recruitment needs to focus on diversifying workforce as much as possible.
- The Community Mental Health Transformation (CMHT) workstream reported key achievements including a well- received CMHT awayday, a Psychological Therapies for Severe Mental Health Problems priority session, and finance being agreed for a project manager (to be recruited). The Health Inequalities framework continues to be developed and there is now commitment from all five places to have a shared approach for the evaluation. Agency support for the development of communication assets to help articulate the CMHT messages to a wider audience has been secured and work has begun on the comms plan. Senior Responsible Officers (SROs) have been appointed for the workstream. The Partnership Board agreed to an extraordinary discussion at the July Board to explore the breadth, depth and understanding of CMH Transformation; to support West Yorkshire wide key communication messages about the expectation of the transformation with staff; to support an information sharing workshop to explore culture and practice barriers to sharing information and identify how to overcome them; and for each Place to review the Psychological Therapies for SMHP investment to ensure it will meet future demand.
- Maternal Mental Health (MMH) – findings from research by Leeds University have shown a need to support baby loss for families. Challenges include high attrition rates and staff sickness with mental health being a recurring factor, exacerbated by difficulties in recruitment. Two pilots have been developed with Forget Me Not children’s hospice helping women with complex/support needs when experiencing baby loss and a therapy support offer within PMH specialist services focused on individuals that have been referred into services but not requiring the full Neurodevelopmental Pathway (NDT). The service evaluation will be undertaken by the University of Huddersfield. Next steps are: MMH commissioners to meet and decide the approach at a workshop (28/06/2022), assessing the learning from the pilots to inform the service model so a service is in place for 2023/2024.
‘Shattered Hopes’
We are saddened to read the latest survey report ‘Shattered Hopes’ from NHS Confederation reflecting the experiences of colleagues from ethnic minority communities. This report highlighted that over half of ethnic minority NHS leaders consider quitting due to racism.
We know through our collective work on this important agenda that this is a reality that many of our colleagues have faced. It’s important that we recognise and support those for whom this data resurfaces trauma and provides you with the assurance that we are continually striving to address racism in West Yorkshire.
As a Partnership, we remain committed to being an anti-racist system and the Integrated Care Board we lead will be an anti-racist organisation. Together we must remain committed to consolidating our work on our Root out Racism movement and to amplify the lived experiences of colleagues who experience racism.
We also remain committed to our ambition to have a more diverse leadership that better reflects the broad range of talent in West Yorkshire, helping to ensure that the poor experiences in the workplace that are particularly high for colleagues from minority communities are a thing of the past. You can read the Partnership’s response on our website.
NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB)
From Friday 1 July 2022, our health and care partnership will include a new statutory organisation within it called the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB). The new Board is part of new legislation set out in the Health and Care Act 2022, which focuses on improving outcomes for people by addressing health inequalities, the difference in care received and effective use of budgets across the area.
Established in 2016, our Partnership sees the Health and Care Act as the next step in organisations working much more closely together as they join up care around people’s needs and focus on better access to care and much greater emphasis on preventing illness and public health.
These new arrangements are designed to help the delivery of care where many people face multiple long term health conditions, are living in poorer communities, and waiting longer for health treatments alongside the impact of ‘living with COVID’.
The integrated care board organisation will have a broad scope and pick up the functions of clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). It will lead on some functions that previously sat in NHS England, Health Education England and elsewhere. This brings greater coherence and resources to local partnerships and provides an opportunity to build on the successful work of WY HCP.
We have strong local place partnerships in Bradford District and Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield District. It has effective 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. The integrated care board will work alongside all of these and will employ former CCG staff who work for the NHS locally or on West Yorkshire Programmes such as cancer, mental health, urgent emergency care and health inequalities.
The organisation will be led by Chief Executive Rob Webster CBE and an independent Chair, Cathy Elliott.
In this episode of our We Work Together podcast, Cathy Elliott talks with Rob Webster and Ian Holmes Director for Strategy and Partnerships about the new integrated care board: Embed https://
You can read the Integrated Care Board papers from Friday 24 June, watch the first meeting of the board online and find out how to ask a question online at https://
Elaine Appelbee MBE appointed chair for Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership
Elaine Appelbee MBE has been successfully recruited to the role of independent chair for Bradford District and Craven place-based partnership. Her appointment follows an open and transparent recruitment process, including a stakeholder panel involving representatives from community groups serving the district.
The West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) is a new statutory organisation that will be established on 1 July 2022. It will be part of the West Yorkshire Integrated Care System (ICS) – known as our West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership.
As part of the new health and care arrangements, most decisions will be made at a place level in support of local Wellbeing Board priorities. The Bradford District and Craven place-based committee will be known as the Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership Board. This is an ICB Committee with authority from the West Yorkshire ICB to make decisions about the use of NHS resources across Bradford District and Craven.
Children and Young People Network
The Children’s Additional Needs Network started in 2016 with an ambition to improve communication between the various charities operating in the Leeds area in the field of supporting children with additional needs and their families. In 2019 Leeds CANN expanded to cover all of West Yorkshire, becoming the West Yorkshire Children’s Additional Needs Network (WYCANN).
WYCANN now has 84 member organisations, including teams from Leeds City Council, Bradford MDC and Calderdale MBC responsible for Children’s and Family Services, and SEND, Councillors with the Children’s’ Services portfolio, and NHS teams with involvement in this area. This flyer contains more information and as a first step towards membership, please contact Chris Eatwell, Chair of the Network, either on email chriseatwell
Using a secure video sharing platform to empower the voice of patient and families across the West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts
The West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership’s Children, Young People (CYP) and Families Programme is working together with the West Yorkshire wide CYP Epilepsy Group to improve patient experience and digitalise the patient pathway. The epilepsy group was successful in securing a funding bid from the Digital Health Partnership Award and is working on implementation of a vCreate Neuro platform across children’s secondary epilepsy services across The West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts.
vCreate Neuro is an NHS Trusted Secure Video Service for Clinical Care. The video support service enables patients and clinicians to upload and share clinical videos and photos safely and securely. The cloud-based service allows registered patients and their carers to securely share smartphone-recorded videos. This includes relevant metadata with their clinical team to digitise diagnostic and decision-making processes taking them through each stage in an easy-to-understand way. Permissions are sought in line with each acute trusts’ processes, easily accessible and can be connected to existing patient records (e.g. by exporting as a PDF with links to videos).
The aim is to improve patient care and experience, reduce the number of clinic visits and investigations and to digitise the patient pathway.
Information governance processes are underway at each acute trust and staff training has begun to be rolled out including sourcing administrative support from secondary epilepsy services. There is focus on patient information and engagement as well as work around defining the evaluation and data from the platform.
We are excited to see the full implementation and the benefits this brings to patients and families over the next few months.
West Yorkshire Healthier Together – a new website for families launches
On Monday 27 June the Partnership will officially launch a new website that provides consistent, accurate and trustworthy healthcare advice to parents, carers, young people, and professionals.
West Yorkshire Healthier Together is a free website developed by local healthcare professionals to help parents and carers keep their children safe and healthy. The online advice compliments local advice given across health and care services. Information has been reviewed by local paediatricians, GPs, community pharmacists, health visitors and other professionals across the region to ensure it is the most current, and up to date information available.
Capital investment to create an aseptic hub facility for West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts (WYAAT)
The West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts (WYAAT) has secured £24 million of capital funding to create an aseptic hub facility in the region. The funding, subject to business case approval, has been allocated to Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust on behalf of the six acute providers that make up WYAAT. This investment is part of a larger package of £75 million being made available by NHS England / Improvement to hospitals over the next three years to create aseptic hub sites to increase production and capacity within aseptic services in England.
Pharmacy aseptic services provide sterile, controlled environments in which highly qualified staff prepare injectable medicines for things such as IV transmitted antibiotics, chemotherapy, and monoclonal antibodies.
Such services provide a range of benefits to patients and to clinicians, which include an improved patient experience, increased patient safety by reducing errors in the manipulation and administration of medicines, the freeing up of nursing staff time for patient care, increased productivity from the medicines budget, and increased resilience within the sector. You can read more about the work on WYAAT’s website.
‘Message in a Bottle’ initiative promotion during Carers Week
It was great to see partners and colleagues coming together during Carers Week (6-12 June) to promote the ‘Message in a Bottle’ initiative. The Partnership has provided 3000 of these potentially lifesaving bottles to local carers organisations who will distribute them to local unpaid carers.
Teaming up for the occasion was ambulance care assistant Bill from Yorkshire Ambulance service stood holding a ‘Message in a Bottle’ capsule and nurses and health care assistants from Wakefield Hospice holding the ‘Message in a Bottle’ flyers, bottles, and bags.
Debby Veigas, End of Life Care Admiral Nurse from Wakefield Hospice said, “It is so important for carers to think about developing a plan that could be used should they become unwell and unable to continue the care and support they provide. Thinking about, agreeing, and talking about a contingency plan would be reassuring - so that the support the carer currently provides would continue in their absence and that decisions are not having to be made quickly in a crisis”.
Act as One Festival 2022 – programme confirmed
Our Act as One Festival is back and once again, we’re looking forward to welcoming health and care colleagues from across our Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership. If you work for the NHS, local authorities, voluntary and community organisations and the independent care sector then we have something for you.
Our programme is as follows (all sessions online through Zoom):
- Making innovation happen in health and care, Tuesday 28 June 9-10am
- Supporting healthy minds in schools, Wednesday 29 June 9-10am
- Better births: perinatal mental health, Thursday 30 June 12-1pm
- Bradford Literature Festival, Wednesday 6 July 9-10am
- Rollout of our Covid vaccine programme: sharing best practice and lessons learned, Thursday 7 July 11-12 You can book on to any of the sessions through Eventbrite