The West Yorkshire Health and Care plan
West Yorkshire’s first Work, Health, and Skills Plan will strengthen partnerships and create a system that can deliver transformational change to improve population health and wellbeing and economic outcomes.
The vision for the Work, Health, and Skills Plan is for West Yorkshire to have the healthiest residents and workforce in England by 2040. Within this vision, the Plan has a clear objective to reduce economic inactivity and health and socio-economic inequalities by supporting more residents with health conditions and disabilities to access or keep good quality work.
The long-term impacts of the Plan will be to:
- improve population health and wellbeing
- improve economic outcomes
We will know we have succeeded when we see more people, especially those with health conditions and disabilities, enter, remain, and progress in good quality work and achieve equitable pay.
Progress towards the objective will be measured and evaluated using metrics which have clear links to wider strategic priorities including the West Yorkshire Plan, Local Growth Plan, and the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Strategy.
The West Yorkshire Work and Health Plan includes five key priorities:
Strengthening the region’s work and health partnership, including through a new oversight board tasked with getting more people into work. Public sector reform will be locally-led and embed new ways of working and information sharing across the NHS, the West Yorkshire Combined Authority and employment support providers. This will deliver better, joined-up services for residents, employers and communities, tackling poor health and worklessness.
Tackling the barriers that small and medium-sized businesses face when recruiting and retaining staff with disabilities or health conditions. Support for employers could include financial assistance to create more inclusive workplaces, combined with specialised HR and Occupational Therapy advice and services to ensure that firms are well-equipped to support all employees. Support will also be provided to those who are, or want to be, self-employed.
Designing new incentives to support more people into good work. These incentives could include publicly funded work placements to kickstart a person’s return to work, as well as financial support for employers to offset increased costs such as training. For those with health conditions, they will receive wrap-around support into good quality work, including through direct financial assistance, the development of their employability and “soft” skills such as problem-solving and public speaking, and free training, mentoring and mental health support.
Backing of the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector to identify and support those who are experiencing poor health and economic inactivity. These services are often the best at reaching people who are the furthest away from the labour market, so they will be bolstered to continue their work engaging with communities and providing wraparound support for people who are out of work or at risk of leaving work, through new funding and partnership working.
Establishing new peer networks of residents, employers and charities to share their experiences, either of being out of work due to a disability or health condition, or of supporting people back into work. Residents, businesses and charities will be able to access learning and training opportunities as part of wider peer networks of people benefitting from shared learning.
- West Yorkshire Work and Health Plan (a link to this plan will be available soon)
Our local place plans:
- Bradford District and Craven
- Leeds
- Calderdale
- Kirklees
- Wakefield District