Posted on: 28 July 2022
Hello, my name is Cathy.
It’s great to be writing the Partnership’s leadership message this week, following an extremely busy July for so many colleagues. Thank you to everyone who is working hard around the clock to keep people safe and well.
From 1 July 2022, our Partnership established a new statutory organisation within it called the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB). The organisation is part of the Government 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.
As a Partnership we see the Health and Care Act as our next step in working much more closely together as we work hard to further join up care around people’s needs and focus on better access to care with a much greater emphasis on preventing illness and the importance of public health.
We continue to have strong local place partnerships in Bradford District and Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield District, and 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. All are important to the way we work together to improve people’s lives locally and across West Yorkshire. Working together is not new to us. We have been working in this way since 2016. You can find out more by watching this film animation.
What is new is the Board of the new NHS West Yorkshire ICB, and I’m delighted that alongside representation from our health and care sectors we have recruited four new non-executive members. We worked closely with the Partnership’s Race Equality Network throughout the recruitment process, and I would like to thank them and other colleagues for their involvement and support. Our new NHS West Yorkshire ICB non-executive members are:
We are also fortunate to welcome Haris Sultan, in his development through the NHS national NExT director programme, focusing on young people and future generations, working closely with Becky. Having five talented, committed, and skilled non-executive members with people and communities at the centre of all we do is essential in contributing to the way we continue to work.
As part of my own Partnership journey, I have the pleasure of visiting colleagues in their working environment to understand the pressure, challenges they and our communities face. This has included visiting Mid-Yorkshire Hospital NHS Trusts and community pharmacy colleagues earlier this year.
More recently I have attended the Bradford District and Craven ‘Act as One Festival Recognition Day’ virtual event, the West Yorkshire Adversity, Trauma and Resilience virtual conference in partnership with the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit, and the online
two-day celebration of our Health Inequalities Academy for its first birthday.
This month I visited in-person Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust to learn first-hand about their capital build plans, health tech innovations and management of emergency care. Please let me know of any opportunities in-person or virtually to visit and support services and events across West Yorkshire. I’m keen to visit colleagues and teams across our area.
As we further grow and develop, we will continue to focus on how we collaborate and learn with communities to improve their health, so we really understand what they need to live well. This is about health in and with communities, helping people to live a good life. We will be working with local colleagues to share good examples of where this is working well and are especially keen to hear about the principles and practices of Asset-Based Community Development, also known as ABCD. This approach supports inclusive, bottom up, community driven change. Many of our local places are already following this approach - creating the conditions where any neighbourhood can identify, connect, and mobilise its assets to the benefit of the whole community. Please do share your examples with me via email at: wycommsand.engagement@nhs.net
Our next ICB meeting will take place on 20 September, and as always, we will be holding the meeting in public with the meeting documents published the week before on our website should anyone have any questions to ask the Board.
Thank you for all you’re contributing to our Partnership and communities.
Cathy
What else has been happening this week?
Westfield Health British Transplant Games
Thursday 28 July to Sunday 31 July
Leeds proudly welcomed the 45th edition of the prestigious British Transplant Games to the city and region on Thursday. Around 1,000 transplant athletes of all ages from around the UK, are being cheered on by their families whilst they compete in a celebration of life and the gift that is organ donation. Year on year, Transplant Sport’s flagship event aims to encourage transplant recipients to remain active, demonstrate the benefits of transplantation and raise public awareness of the importance to speak to your loved ones about your wishes around organ donation. Transplant recipients will take part in over 25 sporting and social events, including the annual Donor Run.
To find out more visit the British Transplant Games website.
Evidence is building that trauma informed approaches support better outcomes
The West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit and the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership are proud to launch the Trauma Informed Education Settings Insight West Yorkshire Guidance written by Educational Consultant, Lisa Cherry, and Researcher, Ellen Froustis.
The study evaluates the early outcomes of The Innovation Project pilot at Outwood Academy Hemsworth. It also examines trauma informed programmes in West Yorkshire schools and educational institutions that have committed to strengthening educational outcomes for vulnerable young people through attachment and trauma-informed methods.
The research shows that evidence is building and that trauma informed approaches support better outcomes in exclusions, in attendance and in mental health and wellbeing. It offers a platform for West Yorkshire to really make a difference for all those in education settings.
West Yorkshire Healthier Together
The Partnership recently launched 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. It has a wide range of information and is available by visiting the Healthier Together website.
The online advice complements 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. Promotional materials including a variety of posters are available to download on the resources page of the website. You can also find out more about the website by watching the following short YouTube videos from one of the clinical leads. One is a 60 second video aimed at parents and there’s also a two-minute video aimed at health professionals explaining more about the website.
In the third video, Dr Allshorn explains how to translate the West Yorkshire Healthier Together website into Urdu and have the content read aloud using the new recite me tool. Visit the website for trustworthy healthcare advice for parents, carers, young people, and professionals and if you have any further questions, please email: wakccg.
Improving Population Health Programme
The Improving Population Health Programme (IPHP) met on Tuesday, chaired by Robin Tuddenham, CEO for Calderdale Council and Place-Lead for Calderdale. The programme is leading on managing the allocation of £10 million to support the Core20PLUS5 framework – an approach set out by NHS England designed to support Integrated Care Systems, like our Partnership, to drive targeted action in healthcare inequalities improvement. Allocation was determined locally, and a system wide Core20PLUS5 Leadership Group has been set up to guide this work, with the IPHP leading on reporting to the national team.
Linked to this funding, the separate Core20PLUS5 Community Connectors programme, focussing on the ‘PLUS’ groups, is up and running. £80,000 has been allocated to West Yorkshire to learn from those with lived experience to connect with Gypsy and Traveller communities and refugees and asylum seekers on key clinical areas for those populations.
Half of the funding has gone to Leeds GATE to support employment of a champion from the local community to lead engagement in early cancer screening pathways and cardio-vascular disease checks. The health inequalities team is collaborating with VCSE organisations who work with vulnerable migrants to scope priority areas and a model for gaining additional insight directly from communities on how we can improve access to Serious Mental Health and Maternity care pathways.
The Climate Change team have updated the WY HCP Climate Change Strategy for 2022-2030, which envisions a healthy equitable and environmentally sustainable society, and presents a path to our goal of becoming a global leader in responding to the climate emergency.
Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism
We are bringing together Autistic people and people with ADHD along with their parents, carers, and support networks to help understand where, how, and why they might be disadvantaged and to provide an opportunity to hear ideas for improvements and reducing inequalities.
The initial workshops, which are hosted by co-production partners Thrive by Design and Touchstone, aim to better understand experiences of the Autism and ADHD assessment process. Thrive by Design has put together some resources that you can use and adapt for your communication channels to support recruitment to the engagement workshops which you can access on their website.
If you would like to find out more information about the workshops, or to register to attend, in a personal capacity please visit the Eventbrite pages. To find out more about our work transforming care for Autistic people and people with ADHD across West Yorkshire visit these pages on our website. If you wish to know more about this work or get involved, please contact shelley.
If you would like to promote these workshops within your networks, please use and adapt the content and resources provided here.
How one Yorkshire Trust eliminated the elective care backlog for people with a learning disability
Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust (CHFT) is leading the way on work to narrow inequalities in waiting lists, including clearing the backlog of people with a learning disability waiting for elective care. The Trust serves a population of around 440,000 people living across Halifax and Huddersfield; approximately 3,000 of which are patients with a learning disability which is known to a health provider. Read the case study.
Dying Matters
In response to the experience of one of their members in relation to the premature death of a sibling, our Learning Disability Health and Care Champions decided that they would like to take a look at dying. They held an in-person event which was attended by people with learning disabilities, carers and families together with specialists. This is their report.
TytoCare digital health solution goes live in West Yorkshire care homes
hanks to funding from NHS Transformation Directorate, the Partnership’s Digital team have been working closely with the Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) to support the spread and uptake of the TytoCare digital health solution.
The wireless handheld device allows patients and their families to perform medical examinations anytime, anywhere for the ear, throat, lungs, heart, temperature, skin, and abdomen. These examinations can be online, live with a medical professional or can be recorded by the patient, parent or carer and uploaded to a secure platform for review by clinical teams.
Fieldhead Court care home in Dewsbury, who link with The Paddock surgery, and Mencap who link with Meltham Road Surgery in Huddersfield have this week introduced the TytoCare device to support their healthcare settings residents on a trial basis.
The Tytocare device can be used to diagnose a range of acute conditions such as colds, flu, ear infections, bronchitis and sore throats and can also be used to manage chronic conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), high blood pressure, asthma, congestive heart failure and diabetes.
Bradford Teaching Hospitals aims to confine hepatitis C to history
To mark World Hepatitis Day (28 July), the Hepatology team – better known as the liver disease experts – at Bradford Teaching Hospitals has launched a brand-new website to encourage more people to know about and get tested for hepatitis C.
The ‘Eliminate HepC’ website - https:/
People can become infected with it if they come into contact with the blood of an infected person. This means drug users are particularly at risk, even if they were a user many years ago. It can also affect people who were born abroad, as the virus is common in some areas including south Asia, have had tattoos abroad or had blood transfusions before 1991. Many people have the infection without realising it as hepatitis C does not have any noticeable symptoms until the liver has been significantly damaged.
That’s why the Hepatology team set out to develop the website – to give people in the Bradford district the facts about the virus and clear, easy to understand, information about how to come forward for a test.