Posted on: 1 November 2019
This week's leadership message comes as episode five of the We Work Together podcast. The episode features Dr Matt Walsh, Calderdale CCG’s Chief Officer and CEO Lead for the Partnership’s Improving Planned Care Programme, in conversation with Christine Hughes, one of the Partnership’s communications officers. They talk about how the arts and creativity are linked to health and wellbeing and Matt explains why for him, the final scene from Billy Elliot sums up that relationship perfectly.
Cancer funding
Four hospitals in West Yorkshire and Harrogate are among a total of 78 NHS Trusts that will benefit from funding for new cancer testing and detection technology, it has been announced. Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust; Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust; Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust will each receive a share of extra £200 million in funding for new cancer screening equipment announced by the Prime Minister last month. Click here to read more and access the full list of 78 Trusts.
You can also read the latest news from our Cancer Alliance here.
What else has been happening this week?
Suicide bereavement support
In a Department of Health and Social Care announcement on Sunday, tailored bereavement support will be available across England on the NHS, to care for people in the aftermath of a family or friend’s suicide. The NHS Long Term Plan commitment for designated suicide bereavement helps in every area across the country by 2023/24. People who have lost someone close to them due to suicide are set to benefit from dedicated bereavement care, as the Government unveils plans to roll out services nationwide. Read more here.
Ten areas are set to benefit from the £940,000 fund, with support ranging from one-to-one sessions with trained volunteers or counsellors and group support or signposting to specialist mental health services. This includes £173,000 for postvention support in West Yorkshire and Harrogate. You can read more here about what it means across our area.
Psychiatry campaign
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Excellence Centre is working with national colleagues to develop a recruitment campaign for psychiatry. Psychiatry has been identified as a hard to fill role. The campaign will include messages around ‘come to Yorkshire’ to drive interest to Yorkshire and to work for the three acute trusts within the West Yorkshire and Harrogate area. Mental health and learning disability nursing are also areas which are difficult to fill, so colleagues will be initiating campaigns to get more people into training for these careers.
Pre-election guidance
The national NHS England and NHS Improvement stakeholder team is working on updating the pre-election guidance for NHS organisations following yesterday’s announcement that there will be a general election this December.
This updated guidance will include information on how this will affect EU Exit preparations in the run up to the extended EU Exit deadline of 31 January 2020.
What's happening next week?
- The project team who are working with people with learning disabilities as ‘Health Champions’ meets on Monday. You can watch this short film to find out more.
- The Shadow System Leadership Board meets on Monday. Colleagues will be looking at the papers going to the leadership day on Tuesday. The Shadow Board is chaired by Matt Walsh, Chief Officer for Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group and CEO Lead for the Improving Planned Care Programme.
- The Clinical Forum meets on Tuesday, chaired by Dr Andy Withers.
- The West Yorkshire and Harrogate Joint Committee of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) will meet in public on Tuesday 5 November 2019. The Committee, which is part of the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership, has a shared health programme of work that aims to further improve the health and wellbeing of the 2.6 million people living across the area. The agenda and papers for Tuesday 5 November 2019 is available on the Partnership's website.
- West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trust CEOs meets on Tuesday.
- The System Leadership Executive Group meets on Tuesday. This is chaired by Rob Webster, our Partnership CEO Lead.
- The Local Government / Public Sector Communication Conference takes place on Tuesday and Wednesday. The ‘Looking out for our neighbours’ campaign will be showcased.
- Yorkshire and Humber Public Health England conference takes place in Leeds on Wednesday about how we work together to create social connections and tackle loneliness / isolation.
- As part of the efforts that the Ministry of Health and Welfare of the Republic of Korea has made to bring health and social care services into more people’s homes and community settings, a team will be visiting Wakefield Connecting Care next week to learn more about developing community-based care services in England and the roles/responsibilities of the NHS, councils and community organisations. They will also meet colleagues from the Partnership.
What's coming up?
- Carers Right Day 21 November. We will be sharing the great work taking place in our six local places (Bradford district and Craven; Calderdale, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield) as well as supporting the work taking place nationally.
- Following the success of the pilot young carers event in June, we are well underway with the arrangements for the next event. It is taking place on Thursday 21st November 2019 at Shine in Leeds (https://shinecollective.co.uk) for the Leeds and Wakefield area.
- Sally Warren (Director of Policy for the Kings Fund) is visiting West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership on Tuesday 12 November. She will be meeting health care leaders from Calderdale and Kirklees.
- #OurDay: A day for local government to come together for the biggest online celebration of the people who keep our communities running.
- ‘Getting Together to tackle Loneliness in Kirklees’ Conference, supported by University of Huddersfield and Kirklees Council. It takes place on the 3 December.