Posted on: 18 April 2019
Hello my name is Thea,
If you try to make sense of the health service by simply watching TV drama and the occasional documentary or listening to the radio you would be forgiven for thinking that it is primarily made up of hospitals. And that the whole of our wonderful health care services are focussed purely on busy A&E departments, life-saving amazing surgery - where beautiful people rush about saving lives and falling in love with each other. Or that all babies are born to families with complicated back stories (but ultimately a redeeming sense of hope and resolution) or supported by midwives in the 1950’s riding bikes and drinking tea.
Yet in our everyday world and lives the majority of health care takes place outside of our hospital walls, in our communities and primary care settings from an incredible workforce often hidden and unseen.
The reality is therefore much greater than the TV scene portrays. A significant amount of health concerns people experience are social in origin – and mental health related in presentation - an important area of work often underrepresented.
Despite years of aiming to shift the conversation from hospital care to care in our communities and to the front door of primary care, the aim has generally failed and the ‘camera’ and activity unfailing pans back to the big shiny buildings and the machines that go ping.
The realism is that most of us do not receive healthcare during our lives in hospital settings. It comes from an army of health visitors, the GP, the practice nurse, midwife, a social worker, home care supporter, the physiotherapist after a sports injury, the counsellor following a bereavement during a period of sadness and / or stress. The list is endless.
This presentation of reality often receives little recognition in any TV drama and until relatively recently real proper focus.
But it feels to me as though ‘times are a changing’ and that, if not on TV, in West Yorkshire and Harrogate at least we are having real life conversations and moving our focus to think and look at the front door of health care where the majority of healthcare interactions happen with and for people; namely primary and community services, social care and new approaches which look at the whole needs of a person and their strengths. An approach I welcome whole heartedly.
The NHS Long Term Plan genuinely emphasises the importance of changing our focus and mind-sets on moving our gaze away from the hospital buildings to the smaller places and homes where primary and community services are delivered, i.e. neighbourhoods.
The Plan recognises that without this focus we are continuing, similar to hospital drama, to explore the same old tired tropes with the same old endings without actually revitalising and changing the playing field for many.
The most recent part of the picture to be revealed is the new GP contract. Never has a contract been quite so interesting and yet so important for everybody to read and understand both the headlines and the small print. Put simply the contract is aiming to provide a spring board to a new way of working in primary care – whilst keeping the practice based contract and in many ways creating new models and alliances that could be truly transformational in their approach.
To be honest, it all feels a bit ‘techy’ to me at the moment, and certainly complex. Many of us are trying to get our heads round what it all means and what the best next steps will be. However, I’m confident we will get there together.
What it should mean, if we collectively get this right and do this boldly in partnership across West Yorkshire and Harrogate, that this is a key part of helping us achieve our ambitions to transform the care we provide to the those we serve – including us as individuals, our families, friends and very own communities.
It’s very important that the GP contract and any implications are not seen as a side show – a documentary late at night on BBC4 just for those aficionados who are ‘in to’ this esoteric subject. The transformation, support and revolution that is possible in the contract needs to be all our business – and we should seize the opportunity to be challenged by what it proposes.
I doubt whether the visualisation of the health and care service on TV dramas will change much in the next 10 years. I dare say no doubt that it will still be portrayed by glamourous people saving lives, falling in love, having complex sub plots and all resolved by the end of the series (or mostly). But we have the opportunity to reflect more of the reality across West Yorkshire and Harrogate – in our Health and Care Partnership, alongside our colleagues and communities to change our ‘story’ of care through grasping the opportunities of working in real partnership with primary care and transforming the way we work together – and importantly with a workforce which works in and outside of hospitals who are truly amazing.
Have a good long weekend and for those colleagues working around the clock to keep people healthy and safe – I hope you get to have some relaxation time too.
Thea
Please share your 'Looking out for our neighbours' positive experiences
It’s been four weeks since the ‘Looking out for our neighbours’ campaign launched (15 March) and we are really keen to hear how your work has been supported by the campaign and your stories and experiences so far.
From early May we will be launching the ‘Looking out for our neighbours’ positive experiences campaign, when we will be sharing some of the great neighbourly activities that have been happening across West Yorkshire and Harrogate.
Your continued support is very important to the success of this important campaign. Thank you. Please could you take a couple of minutes to fill in this short questionnaire or share with any relevant contacts so we can capture what has been happening so far? Responses by 24 April via the link below would be great please. Share your stories here.
What else has been happening this week?
Urgent and Emergency Programme Board
The Urgent and Emergency Programme Board met on Monday and is chaired by Dr Adam Sheppard. This was an extended session to consider all of the urgent and emergency care asks within the NHS Long Term Plan. It was facilitated by colleagues from the Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network. The Board also received an update on the March 2019 target that NHS111 will be able to book more than 30% of people into a face to face appointment within primary care. West Yorkshire and Harrogate achieved 51.4%.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Mental Health, Learning Disability and Autism Programme Board
The Board met on Wednesday. The meeting was chaired by Dr Sara Munro, CEO Partnership Lead for the Programme and CEO for Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. The board includes colleagues working in provider and commissioning settings as well as those from community organisations. There was an update on the implementation of the carers passport for employees across all NHS organisations; suicide prevention; assessment and treatment units for people with learning disabilities; autism/ADHD (adults and children); forensic services, urgent and emergency care. Information on the Clinically-led Review of NHS Access Standards was also discussed as well as communication and engagement.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership Public Health Co-ordination Group
The Public Health Coordination Group met on Tuesday. The meeting is chaired by Dr Ian Cameron, Director of Public Health for Leeds City Council. Colleagues are working towards the following priorities:
- Development and implementation of the four key work streams: tobacco harm; alcohol harm; obesity – to reduce diabetes; health and care workforce.
- Co-ordination of the public health input into the West Yorkshire and Harrogate-wide work streams.
- Development and strengthening of links and co-ordination of the local prevention contribution to the overall partnership.
- Support to the local authority’s contribution to the partnership.
We have seen a number of achievements including:
- A reduction in smoking prevalence – the Partnership has an ambition to reduce the prevalence of smoking from 18.5% to 13% by 2021. Year 1 and 2 figures have declined in line with predicted forecast to 17.3%. There has been a 9% reduction which exceeds the trajectory of 3% in alcohol specific admissions across West Yorkshire and Harrogate.
- The National Diabetes Programme (NDPP) has exceeded delivery milestones at place and the three programmes covering West Yorkshire and Harrogate have signed off the new commissioning arrangements for one NDPP across the area.
Harnessing the Power of Communities Programme
The programme is planning an event in May to discuss the NHS Long term plan and how the VCS can get involved at both a local place (Bradford District and Craven; Calderdale, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield) and a West Yorkshire and Harrogate level.
We are also using the event to share the work delivered in our places through the £1m loneliness funding, to gather understanding of the work to date from our Building Health Partnerships projects in Calderdale and Wakefield and to find out about the work we are doing as one of nine sites that NHS England and NHS Improvement are working with to understand where good practice of working with the VCS is taking place.
We still have much to do. You can find our recently developed VCS 2020 strategy here where colleagues have described how they want to work as a sector with the wider Partnership. We have ambitions to ensure:
- Social value is a fundamental principle that underpins all our work
- Sustainable commissioning models including the redistribution of resources towards preventing ill health approaches
- Influencing policy change to see the prevention agenda is truly delivered with and by communities.
The programmes Check and Confirm session will take place in the coming weeks for a progress update led by Soo Nevison, our VCS lead and CEO for Community Action Bradford & District.
West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts (hospitals working together)
The West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts (WYAAT) is an innovative collaboration, which brings together the six NHS trusts (Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust, Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust) who deliver acute hospital services across West Yorkshire and Harrogate. The purpose of the association is for the hospitals to work together on behalf of patients to deliver more joined up, high quality, cost effective care.
West Yorkshire Vascular Network
In previous bulletins we shared with you that we have submitted recommendations to NHS England for two arterial hubs for vascular services in West Yorkshire: Leeds General Infirmary, co-located with the Major Trauma Centre, and Bradford Royal Infirmary. The hubs will provide all elective arterial and acute work as well as high risk Interventional Radiology (IR). Day case (minor surgery), diagnostics and outpatient clinics will remain at the local hospitals.
As part of our recommendation, we agreed that vascular services in West Yorkshire will be delivered as a single service across the whole of West Yorkshire, bringing together the expertise and resources from all five trusts. A communications plan is being finalised, linking with NHS England around consultation planned for May (post elections). A briefing will go out to all staff shortly to bring them up-to-date with the development of the service, public consultation process, etc.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Pathology Network
Work continues to develop and examine the future of pathology services in the WYAAT footprint. A single network for pathology in West Yorkshire and Harrogate is being developed, aiming to increase quality, invest in new technology; develop our workforce and increase efficiency and productivity.
Branding
To help with understanding of how the local systems fit together it has been agreed that the WYAAT brand will become a clearer sub-brand of the Partnership. Further detail will emerge over the coming months.
Stroke care in Harrogate
Following extensive public engagement over the last two years around the future of safe and timely hyper acute stroke care, a new process for the way patients requiring hyper acute stroke care is now in place. Under the new way of working, patients requiring hyper acute stroke care will be taken directly by ambulance to a larger hyper acute stroke unit - most likely to be Leeds or York - in order to ensure that the treatment they receive is timely and effective. Patients will be transferred back to Harrogate District Hospital as soon as possible after initial treatments or discharged home and will receive their ongoing rehabilitation care locally.
NHS Providers
The Communications Team from NHS Providers will be meeting with WYAAT’s Communications Leads Group in June to hear about and discuss the progress of WYAAT and how we’re working together as six hospital trusts.
Working as part of the Partnership
The WYAAT trusts’ communications leads are working together as part of the wider Partnership to support engagement around the NHS Long Term Plan, and the successful launch (and follow-on communications) of the ‘Our neighbours’ campaign.
Digital and social media
As mentioned previously, the new WYAAT website is where we are sharing our achievements – take a look! www.wyaat.wyhpartnership.co.uk
WYAAT has also launched a twitter account @WYAAT_Hospitals with the hashtag #hospitalstogether. Follow them to find out more about all the work going on.