Engagement and consultation

Seed funding enabled the establishment of an innovative pilot service to improve health and wellbeing of people suffering from musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions, with a focus on reducing health inequalities. Funding was provided by the Health Equalities Partnership programme and the programme of work was managed by the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership (the Partnership).

A service was established that created two pilot pathways to alternative and complementary therapies and activities for people suffering with MSK. To address health inequalities, the service was aimed at people potentially experiencing barriers to accessing services, such as people:
• living in deprived communities
• from an ethnic minority group
• with learning disabilities
• with severe mental illness
• on long waiting lists, for example due to Covid.

Patients selected activities or therapies according to their own interest and these were delivered by a partnership of voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations in Keighley and Bradford, West Yorkshire.

The Partnership produced a first-stage evaluation report in June 2021. This provided a snapshot of the status of the pathways at the end of the funding period (March 2021). It was structured around the intended impacts and success indicators outlined in the Partnership’s application for funding. It included early indicators of outcomes for patients that showed positive benefits in terms of increased well-being and self-management.

Read the evaluation report.

West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership (the Partnership) is developing a vision for how it can become a global leader in responding to the climate emergency. The Partnership has commissioned this insight research to inform its vision and to help it understand how to engage both staff and patients in making the fundamental changes that meeting a net zero target will require.

We designed a mixed methods approach involving both qualitative and quantitative research elements. The first stage was a series of 12 deliberative workshops with staff, patients, and citizens. Participants attended two deliberative workshops, each involving participants, a researcher, and a member of the Climate Change team. In the first, participants discussed their current perceptions and behaviours on tackling climate change and they were given information about the climate emergency and current approaches to tackle it, and they discussed possible ways in which the Partnership could become a global leader in tackling climate change.

After the workshop they were given a task to interview a friend, colleague or family member about the topic and the ideas. This innovative technique allowed us to gain greater insight into their response to the information they receive, and how social norms affect the messages. In the second workshop they reported on their interview, how the person responded, and how the interview had affected their own views. Their interview, plus the time to reflect on the ideas from the first workshop, enabled them to take a more informed and reflective position on how to motivate and mobilise people and organisations to take action. The findings from the workshops were explored with the Climate Change Team in the Partnership and a set of draft ideas and campaign messages were identified. We then tested these with a wider group of staff and citizens in an online survey with 413 respondents. The third stage was a series of seven co-creation workshops that produced a final set of messages and a campaign strategy.

The reports are available here:

Summary report

Full report

Through engagement activities young carers have voiced the need for resources they can access to support their health and wellbeing. The unpaid carers team is delighted to be working in collaboration with the award-winning Hebden Bridge based Verd De Gris creative arts company to co -produce a resource. Two creative workshops are planned on Zoom in May to share young carers thoughts, ideas, and creations under their guidance. The finished resource based on food, cookery, and caring aims to be a unique bespoke product created by young carers for young carers. 11 young carers including primary and secondary school age from across the Partnership are taking part.

You can read the full engagement report here

The free Young Carers Support App launched 16 March on Young Carers Action Day 2021. This first version is a collaboration between young carers, the Partnership and Dr Knut Shroeder. We are keen to gather feedback and hear the view of young carers and colleagues who may be signposting young carers to the App. The feedback will inform and enable us to co-produce the final versions to be launched in May. The survey closes on the 16 April 2021.

• Take the young carers support app survey

On Friday 23^rd April Dr Katherine Hickman, Respiratory Lead for West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership, hosted a short lunchtime session aimed at colleagues from Primary Care working with respiratory patients. This session looked at how you to safely restart spirometry in primary care based on the NHS England guidelines. The session will guided colleagues through the QOF changes and showcase an exciting new digital respiratory educational and quality improvement dashboard exclusive to West Yorkshire and Harrogate and where colleagues can access, for example, a refresher course on spirometry.

Following the event delegates were asked to complete a short feedback survey, the results can be read by clicking on this link.

Our GP Online Consultation report, published in April 2021, summarises engagement and audience insight activities carried out over the previous year and before the lockdown period.

GP Online Consultation is a way for patients to contact their GP practice without having to phone or go to their practice. Patients use an online form, available on the GP website to contact their practice about a new problem or an ongoing issue. They can ask questions or tell their GP about their symptoms. The practice makes sure the query is dealt with by the right person in the team as quickly and appropriately as possible. Every day the practice sets aside time to make sure queries are dealt with by the right person in the team, helping make sure everyone is served as quickly and in the best way possible. Using technology, like GP Online Consultation, is an important part of the care we provide. It complements face-to-face and telephone advice and provides secure online access to clinicians, personalised health information and advice.

• Read more about GP Online

The vision for our work is to come together with people with lived experience and colleagues across all sectors, to ensure West Yorkshire and Harrogate is a trauma informed and responsive system. Our ambition includes working from preconception through adulthood to act early, build resilience and reduce adversity and trauma for people living in West Yorkshire and Harrogate. This virtual event will bring partners together to share evidence, practice and raise awareness so we can start a system-wide trauma informed and responsive journey.

You can read the event feedback here

With the third national lockdown being introduced in January 2021, over 100,000 clinically extremely vulnerable people across the region were once again asked to shield.

The Partnership, along with the Local Resilience Forum, West Yorkshire Prepared, hosted ‘The Shielding Experts’ webinar on Wednesday 3 February 2021, providing a valuable opportunity to listen to people about their experiences of shielding. 

In early 2021, we asked people to tell us about their relationship with their local environment, looking at issues such as access to green spaces and nature-based activities.

• Green social prescribing survey results

Here is the report for the second phase of the Maternity Services project - the community action network and their work with the public, along with the supporting co-production work. This follows on from the phase one insights from health professionals who work in maternity services, the next stage strategic approach included the setting up of a Maternity Services Community Action Network.

Maternity Services Community Action: Phase 2 – The Community Action Network and public insight

In the report there is an overview of the work done to date and main findings per yet to be heard group. There is also a communications and engagement toolkit document which summarises all of the main findings and recommendations on messaging and media. This is intended to be a valuable tool for the future design of communications to these groups. The report includes co-produced ideas and the recommended plan to pilot four interventions.

Assessment and treatment units are like a special kind of hospital ward. They are for people with learning disabilities who might also have mental ill health or if their behaviour is challenging.

In West Yorkshire, people sometimes get sent to assessment and treatment units when they don’t need to be. Some people end up staying there for a long time. This is because there is nowhere else close to where they live for them to be supported well.

We know that it is not good for people’s health and it is expensive for health care services.

In our area, there are three 'Transforming Care Partnerships'. They cover Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Wakefield and Barnsley. They want to stop people with learning disabilities being sent to assessment and treatment units when they don’t need to be. If people do need to be then they must stay in one near to where they live. Community services will be made better and people will get the right care and support for them.

This will mean that more people can stay in their own homes and be close to where their friends and families live.

In 2019 we looked at the way care is provided across the three assessment and treatment units and how as a region we make the best collective use of our services. You can read a report about when we talked to people about ATUs here.  A quality and equality impact assessment has been completed and is available on request. You can call 01924 317659 or email jeanette.miller@nhs.net for a copy of the assessment.

More engagement with people who access care, their carers and staff who work in the units was due to start in Spring 2020, but due to the Coronavirus pandemic this activity was paused. Soon after that time, the unit in Leeds was also repurposed, due to the need for extra space related to the pandemic. However, with the support of Inclusion North, a specialist organisation who works with people with complex needs/learning disabilities, this work began on 5 October 2020, it was extended to allow more time for feedback due to challenges presented by engaging during the pandemic but ended on 30 November with the staff engagement continuing until 14 December.  The report is now available and will be discussed at various committees within West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership before being presented to the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

• Further engagement and equality report of findings
• Further engagement and equality report of findings - EasyRead summary

• People were able to get involved by:
• Completing an online survey about assessment and treatment units (the online survey is now closed)
• download or print a copy the survey to fill in and send back
• emailing jeanette.miller@nhs.net, call 01924 317659 or write to Freepost RTJC-KCSC-HYJZ, NHS Wakefield CCG if they wished to:
  • request a paper copy of the survey
  • ask to talk to one of our team in person, on the phone or online about what this would mean for you.
  • ask to be part of a discussion group with other people and people who work in health and care services

All of our information and documents about the assessment and treament units are "easy read".

Engagement with staff

• Letter seeking staff views on proposed changes to Assessment & Treatment Units 
• Survey for staff

Progress will be communicated to staff, carers and people with lived experience of ATUs who engaged with us during this process.  In the case of people with lived experience this will be by easy read letter.

More information

• our answers to some of the questions people have asked about assessment and treatment units
• the letter we sent to people about assessment and treatment units

West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership would like to thank Inclusion North, people with lived experience of ATU services, ATU and community staff for their support and input.

Looking out for our neighbours is an award winning social movement that aims to prevent loneliness and its associated health risks throughout West Yorkshire and Harrogate. It succeeds by encouraging people to do simple things to help out their neighbours.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, over 49,000 people got involved and made a positive difference to their neighbours lives through acts of kindness a part of the ‘Looking out for our neighbours’ campaign.

You can read the campaign reports by selecting the links below: 

Phase one:  March - June 2019

Phase two:  December 2019 – March 2020

Phase three: November 2020 – January 2021   

 The ‘Looking out for our neighbours’ community campaign has been recognised as an award winning social movement, and won a PRmoment Award for Public Sector Campaign for the Year in November 2020.

Phase 4: Looking out for each other #SpreadTheKindness

Insight and co creation report: Looking out for each other co:creation July 2021

Engagement colleagues are working with Healthwatch partners to have conversations with people and get their views on the development of the Partnership’s five year plan in response to the NHS Long Term Plan. The Partnership’s plan will set out our ambitions for the next five years and also identify any work needed to align to the NHS Long Term Plan. It will build on our work to date and will be a refresh of our ‘Next Steps to Better Health and Care for Everyone'.

Healthwatch were commissioned by NHS England to coordinate and support this work.

Two surveys were made available via Healthwatch, and a series of focus groups were run in our local areas, looking at digitisation, personalisation and wider relevant local long-term plan priorities. 

Healthwatch have now produced a report which they have shared with Healthwatch England and the Partnership. A copy of the report is availble to read here, and will be made available on local Healthwatch websites.

Read or download the full version of the Healthwatch Long Term Plan engagement report

Read or download a summary of the Healthwatch Long Term Plan engagement report

The Partnership welcomes the report - you can download the Partnership's official response the report here, and read what local health and care leaders have to say about the report here.

This important work will help us to identify future areas of engagement at a local and West Yorkshire and Harrogate level and will complement the work already taking place, as set out in our engagement and consultation mapping work (and see our engagment mapping work for personalisation and digitisation here). We will continue to keep you updated as the work develops.

You can read more about the NHS Long Term Plan here.

West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership are pleased to present a collation of feedback received from its partners, including (but not exclusively) from all West Yorkshire Healthwatch organisations, Yorkshire Cancer Community, Carers UK and Bradford Talking Media. This was specifically regarding the impact of coronavirus on individual people and communities. Our thanks go to all engagement colleagues for sharing early findings to contribute to this important, timely piece of work.

Coronavirus engagement report for stabilisation and reset - August 2020

The West Yorkshire and Harrogate Healthy Hearts programme has now completed its public engagement on its upcoming work to identify and treat - at scale - patients whose LDL* cholesterol levels that may be better controlled through switching to a high intensity statin, and also initiating a statin in those patients at risk of developing CVD. 

The engagement took place from the beginning of June until mid July 2019 and more than 200 responses were received, with some completing the online questionnaire and others giving their feedback in focus groups that took place across West Yorkshire and Harrogate.

You can read more about this engagement work on the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Healthy Hearts website

*there are two types of cholesterol - good cholesterol (high-density lipoprotein, or HDL) - and bad cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein, or LDL). If the level of bad cholesterol in your blood is too high it can increase the risk of heat disease, including heart attack or stroke.

Healthy Hearts engagement report

Healthy Hearts engagement - you said, we did

West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership want to develop a mechanism that engages young people with the health and care sector to inspire them to pursue a career in the sector.  And to help raise the aspirations of young carers by helping them to identify and recognise their own skills and showcasing work opportunities and the diversity of roles available to them.

The Partnership commissioned Ahead Partnership to help them support one of of the workforce recommendations set out in their strategy to 'increase the number of people training to work in health and social care roles across West Yorkshire and Harrogate'.

An engagement event took place on Tuesday 25 June 2019 at 3M Buckley Innvoation Centre in Huddersfield.  31 young people attended the event which provided an opportunity for young carers from across Kirklees and Calderdale to come together.

You can read the report of findings here.

West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership held an event on Tuesday 21st May 2019 at Kala Sangam in Bradford to discuss the impact of the NHS Long Term Plan on our communities and, specifically, how the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) can work in partnership with other parts of the system to support some key actions within the Long Term Plan around mental health, social prescribing, admission avoidance at A&E and VCS delivery as part of the primary care network model.

We will also be sharing the work from the Harnessing the Power of Communities workstream within the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership and how each of our 6 places (Bradford District and Craven, Calderdale, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield) have invested money in VCS-led activities.  And an update on the peer support workforce development programme and the Building Health Partnerships projects taking place in Calderdale and Wakefield.

Read the final report from the event 

Event agenda

View or download the presentations from the event

We looked at the way in which care is provided across the three Assessment and Treatment Units (ATUs) and how as a region we make the best collective use of our services. There are currently 22 specialist hospital beds in West Yorkshire we need to look at reducing this number of beds, so that we can support people with learning disabilities and acute complex needs/challenging behaviour in their local community.

This engagement activity was delivered over a 4 week period commencing 18 February 2019. The engagement is an essential part of our process and is part of a planned approach to seek the views of service users, carers, families, staff and key stakeholders who have experiences of ATUs across West Yorkshire to further to inform the next stage of our work. This next stage will be about how to reconfigure ATU provision in the region to ensure maximum benefit for both service users and the system.

• Engagement mapping report (January 2020)
• Read the engagement report of findings (May 2019)

In readiness for further talks about these services in 2020, we are attending the West Yorkshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

• West Yorkshire Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee papers, February 2020

West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership held an event on Thursday 4 April with over 100 delegates, including carers and carer organisation representatives to discuss how the NHS Long Term Plan can support better outcomes for unpaid carers across the area.

The event brought together a range of local people, carers and health and social care professionals to seek their views. This will help align the West Yorkshire and Harrogate carers’ strategy with the Long Term Plan.

Report of findings from our Long Term Plan unpaid carers engagement event held in April 2019

Find out more about what we're doing to support carers

In February 2019 the Partnership hosted an event to engage staff from a wide group of health, public health, social care, people with lived experience and Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise partners in a conversation about personalised care. This was a show and tell event that looked at what personalised care is, why it’s important, celebrating what we are doing in West Yorkshire and Harrogate, how people can get involved and what the next steps are.

Report of findings from the 'Our Journey to Personalised Care' event

With the recent Government announcement of additional funding for the NHS, West Yorkhsire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership, alongside other partnerships, were invited to comment on the first of a series of conversations around the develeopment of the Long Term Plan.

We collated many responses from across our area.  You can view our response here.

On Tuesday 10 July a small working group of representatives from local public, patient groups met to co-produce a mechanisam for providing assurance that here is authentic patient and public involvement in our Parnership work. Over 15 people attended from various organisational roles, including Trust governors, clinical commissioning groups and chairs from MESMAC and Trans Mission. Attendees discussed the findings form the first meeting in April when over 40 people attended.

They disccussed the role they and others could play in ensuring the wider Partnership work keeps the public at the every hear of decision-making.  Being open and transparent is very important as is assuring meaningful public engagement. The group also discussed the next steps, which includes a core assurance group to ensure continuity. Keeping the views of young people is essential and Jill Dufton (Partnership Engagement Manager) updated the goup on the work we are doing with youth forums.

Everyone agreed that this was the start of an exciting opportunity to shape effective public, patient involvement assurance for the Partnership. A priority would be to estsablish clear principles of working and assurance standards, learning from existing good practice in our six local places (Bradford District and Craven, Calderdale, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield).

You can read the report from the workshop here.

West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership held a half day un paid carers and primary care engagement event on Tuesday 25 September at Clayton Hotel Leeds in Leeds. You can read the report of findings here along with our ‘you said, we did’ feedback report from the themes identified in the findings report. 

Over fifty people attended a stakeholder event in Leeds on Wednesday 30 May organised by the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership.

The aim of the event was to ask people who have had a stroke, their carers and community organisations, including charities such as the Stroke Association, Age UK and The British Heart Foundation for their views on how specialist stroke care (the care people receive in the first few hours and days after having a stroke) could be further improved to ensure services are fit for the future.

The event hosted by the Partnership’s stroke programme members, which includes doctors, ambulance services and public health colleagues, gave people an update on the work to date including findings from a stakeholder event in February and workshops held in March across the area in Bradford, Brighouse, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield. You can read more about the event here.

You can view the presentations here. The view report of findings from the event here.

A public involvement chairs panel event will take place on the 17 April 2018. Approximately 50 people have signed up and speakers include Jeremy Taylor from National Voices. The aim is to invite people to get more involved and take part in a potential citizen's panel.

You can view the presentations here. 

17th April 2018 event - Report & Findings

Report of findings from public workshops on stroke – March 2018.

Stroke care event – 2 February 2018. Report findings and presentation

West Yorkshire and Harrogate (WY&H) Health and Care Partnership held an unpaid carers event on Thursday 14 December 2017 at St. Swithuns Centre in Wakefield.

The event was the first of its kind across WY&H which was to start conversations with unpaid carers and representatives from carers organisations. The aim of the event was to build on the work to date and heighten the profile of carers in a more holistic way and recognise and celebrate what is happening already across WY&H and identify good practice.

Guest speakers on the day included Rob Webster West Yorkshire and Harrogate, Health and Care Partnership, CEO Lead, Emily Holzhausen OBE from Carers UK and Fatima Khan-Shah, Partnership Lead for Carers and Neil Churchill from NHS England.

This film made with & by Young Carer Health Champions illustrates the impact of being identified & offered support. Link

You can view the presentations here and read the report of findings here.

We are delighted to be able to announce that we held our first voluntary and community and West Yorkshire and Harrogate, Health and Care Partnership on Monday 6 November at the Carlisle Business Centre in Bradford.

The aim of the event was to provide an update on the work of the partnership and progress to date, and focused on and how voluntary and community organisations can become more involved moving forward, which is a priority to us all.

You can view the presentation here and read the findings report here.

A follow up event took place on Friday 1 December. You can read the report here.
 

Across West Yorkshire and Harrogate, healthcare professionals, including doctors and consultants, are working together to look at how we can further improve care for people who are at risk of stroke, or those who have had a stroke.

Before decisions are made on the future of stroke services in West Yorkshire and Harrogate, we wanted to find out what you think about the services that are currently provided and what would be important to you should you have a stroke, or care for someone who has. We have worked with Healthwatch, an organisation which is independent of the NHS, to ask people for their views.

You can view this presentation to find out more about our proposals to improve stroke services.

Please read the communication, engagement and equality plan and also the initial scoping Equality Impact Assessment.

You can read our engagement report to see what we found out.


You can also watch this short film to find out more about the results of the engagement activity.



Please also view our report to the West Yorkshire Joint Health and Scrutiny Committee 23 January 2017.

Between 3 October 2013 and 14 February 2017 a consultation exercise took place on a proposal to change the way hyper acute stroke services are provided in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw. You can read more about this project and what was learnt.
 

Healthwatch carried out an independent piece of engagement work across West Yorkshire and Harrogate on follow-up appointments. You can read the report here.

We have worked in partnership with the six local Healthwatch across West Yorkshire and Harrogate to help us keep people's views at the heart of our priority areas of work, including urgent care, stroke and health optimisation. For our urgent and emergency care engagement, Healthwatch has helped us to reach out into a range of communities.

For example in July 2015 it was announced that there would be 8 new 'vanguards' for urgent and emergency care. This included the West Yorkshire Urgent and Emergency Care Network that would oversee, with local partners, the improvement of urgent and emergency care for more than 3 million people across West Yorkshire. As part of this work we wanted to seek people's views about the 'Hear, See and Treat' model of emergency care, which is all about improving the way people access emergency services. You can watch this video to find out more about the 'Hear, See and Treat' model.

In Summer 2016 the six Healthwatch supported public and patient engagement for 'Hear, See and Treat' in partnership with the Yorkshire Ambulance Service. Overall, 147 face-to-face sessions were held across Harrogate and West Yorkshire. In addition to the outreach sessions, Healthwatch used Facebook, Instagram and third party website advertising to promote the video. Over 306,600 people saw the adverts and 137,437 people viewed the video.

To find out more about the engagement process for 'Hear, See and Treat' visit Healthwatch Kirklees's website. You can also view further work carried out by Healthwatch in Autumn 2016 here.

Paediatric Ambulatory Care Evaluation Report

The aim of the Complex Rehabilitation project is to understand the needs and experiences of people  from West Yorkshire who are currently placed in long term complex rehabilitation hospital placements out of their local area. This was previously known as Locked Rehabilitation. 

To fully understand this work we consulted with individuals  within the services, and carers as it was important to us to recruit experts by experience to lead this. The outcome of this work will inform a redesign of service options for West Yorkshire that will better meet peoples’ needs and improve their experience, reducing the use of out of area placements an providing a range of different and better options including community support.

• Complex Rehab Carer's Voice full report
• Service User Report Complex Rehab