West Yorkshire Integrated Care System / Integrated Care Board Director Roles Recruitment

Applicant pack for directors and independent non-executive members

"Applicant Pack for Directors" front cover design Thank you for expressing an interest in an exceptional opportunity to become a director for the award winning West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (Integrated Care System / Board) in one of the following roles:

Director of Finance
Medical Director
Director of Nursing
Director of People
Independent non-executive members

All applications are now closed.

Applications were made through our recruitment partner at
www.odgers.com/84811

If you would like a confidential discussion regarding a role, please contact:

Rob Webster, CEO-designate, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, via email rob.webster1@nhs.net
Cathy Elliott, Chair-Designate, NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, via email cathy.elliott2@nhs.net
Suzie Tilburn, Associate Director for HR, and Organisational Development, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, via email suzie.tilburn@nhs.net

You can read more about the work of our Partnership on our website. You can also follow us on twitter @wypartnership.

We encourage applications from people of all backgrounds and welcome applications from under-represented groups, so we bring diversity of perspectives to thinking and are inclusive of the population. If you share our values and ambitions for the people living in West Yorkshire and have the skills and experience to drive our integrated care system forward, then we would be delighted to receive your application.

A message to applicants from our Chair-Designate of the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and our CEO-Designate for the Integrated Care System

Cathy Elliott and Rob Webster Thank you for your interest in becoming a Director for the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board. We are looking for someone who lives the values of West Yorkshire and can enhance our Partnership, which is built on over five years of system working. As we enter the next period of development for our health and care system, we are seeking people with the humility, skills and professionalism required to lead in West Yorkshire. This means being able to demonstrate that you can make an impact on people’s health outcomes and address some of the most significant inequalities and unwarranted variations in care in England. Key to this is promoting equality and demonstrating a commitment to diversity and inclusion and tackling health inequalities as a leader.

You will facilitate the use of the system’s resources to ensure the biggest difference can be made from our investments, including the social and economic value of the money we spend.

As a Director for the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, you will help set the tone in our ambitious, successful, award-winning system. You will help shape a new team that leads in a very different way from any predecessor organisation - in a system built on a partnership between the NHS, local government, the voluntary community social enterprise sector (VCSE), business and communities. We have a model of diverse and distributed leadership that embraces all the talents in the Partnership. Together we are proud to be the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership.

If this sounds like it’s for you and you meet the person specification, then apply to join us, whatever your background we would be interested to hear from you. We look forward to receiving your application.

About our Partnership

West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership is a large integrated care system (ICS) that supports 2.4 million people, living in urban and rural areas. 770,000 are children and young people. 530,000 people live in areas ranked in the most deprived 10% of England. 20% of people are from minority ethnic communities. There are an estimated 400,000 unpaid carers, as many don’t access support. Together we employ over 100,000 staff and work alongside thousands of volunteers. We are very proud to have won the Health Service Journal Award for Integrated Care System of the Year, 2021.

West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership landscape - map of West Yorkshire and list of public sector partner organisations We take a place-based approach that highlights the strengths, capacity, and knowledge of all those involved. This way of working is supported by system-wide priority programmes and agreed memorandum of understanding, which will be replaced by a new Integrate Care Board constitution in the new year.

Our strength provides greater opportunities to deliver our Five Year Plan ambitions, ensuring that all people are given the best start in life, are able to remain healthy and age well. You can see examples of the positive difference made together here.

Working arrangements are co-produced by partner organisations, including NHS and community providers, commissioners, hospices, local authorities, the voluntary community social enterprise (VCSE) sector, Healthwatch and communities.

Our politically led Partnership Board brings partners together and is supported by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, and Local Resilience Forum. This approach is supported by strong provider organisations, including West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts, the Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism Collaborative, and Joint Committee of Clinical Commissioning Groups.

Work is tested through good governance arrangements - sector lead forums, ‘peer to peer’ local place reviews, programme ‘check and confirm’ sessions, system assurance oversight and public involvement. We engage people via our local places and Healthwatch around priorities that would improve people’s wellbeing and we have lay members on programmes.

We have a Joint Committee Public and Patient, Involvement Group; co-opted public members on the Partnership Board; a community cancer patient panel and stroke panel. A patient panel for planned care recovery, an advisory panel of people with learning disabilities, race equality network and a young people collective voice group – all guide programmes by challenging the way we work. This is supported by our involvement principles.

This collaborative approach has been central to handling the pandemic in maintaining personal protective equipment supply, coordinating testing, helping over 100,000 people shielding, rolling out the vaccine programme with volunteer support.

An example can be seen in the establishment of the ICS health inequalities subgroup, and equality impact assessments carried out locally. This identified a further 53,000 unpaid carers. Another example is delivering recommendations from our review and the impact of COVID-19 on colleagues and groups from minority ethnic communities, as well as addressing the inequalities for people with learning disabilities. 75% of people with learning disabilities are now being offered an annual health check.

We are working together towards equitable reset considering inequalities and ethnicity alongside clinical need.

What we hope you will see when reading through this supporting information is a demonstration of the success, we are making together to give everyone the best start in life, with every opportunity to live a long and happy healthy one.

Background

The Health and Care Bill

West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership continues to make progress with the development and implementation of the new statutory Integrated Care System (ICS), which will come into effect in July 2022, subject to Parliamentary approval.

The Health and Care Bill 2021, which contains a series of measures to formally establish ICSs, is currently at committee stage. You can read all national guidance here.

The Bill will put Integrated Care Systems on a firm statutory footing, empowering them to better join up health and care for people, improve population health, reduce health inequalities to help ensure everyone has the best start in life, and has every opportunity to live a long, healthy one.

The Bill also introduces the creation of Integrated Care Boards (ICBs). These ICBs will hold a substantial budget for commissioning high quality care and have the authority to establish performance arrangements to ensure this is delivered. The Director of Finance role is an important role. They will be a member of the board.

Our ICB will develop a plan to meet the health needs of the population and secure the provision of health services and will be accountable for NHS spend and performance in West Yorkshire.

The ICB will deliver most of its functions through the five place-based partnerships in West Yorkshire (Bradford District and Craven; Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield) as part of a well-established way of working to meet the diverse needs of our citizens and communities. Central to this approach are local people; both the public and the staff who deliver health and care services.

While getting our structures and governance right is crucial, integrated care is about practical, real improvements to care and population health. The ICB will be complemented by the Integrated Care Partnership (ICP). which will be the forum to include the wide range of local interests.

This will look very similar to the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Board. We are engaging on the ICB constitution which will refresh our current partner memorandum of understanding. The closing date for partners, stakeholder views is the 14 January 2022.

Working together

Our ICS was established on the principles that subsidiarity and distributed leadership is key. The creation of the leadership arrangements for the partnership and the overall operating model were built from this premise. Place-based leaders take responsibility for the West Yorkshire wide programmes of work to ensure what we do is grounded in place and has the benefits afforded to the whole West Yorkshire population.

Within each of our places, our local placed-based partnerships mirror the way we work. The NHS, councils, hospices, Healthwatch and voluntary community social enterprise partners come together to serve local communities and join up care.

Collaboration at all levels and a focus on asset-based community development is an essential ingredient of this role. This is all about community needs (not demands), where strengths are recognised and respected as a fundamental part of the way we work.

As we begin our journey to recover from the pandemic, we will be challenged with addressing extreme inequalities exacerbated by COVID-19 and a resurgence in long waiting times for treatments in all sectors. Our Finance Director will lead the West Yorkshire Director of Finance Forum and be able to work with all partners to help rise to the financial challenge, whilst keeping in view the importance of tackling health inequalities. This includes our role as an employer and anchor institution.

We fully understand our challenges - and are open, honest, and transparent with one another. This enables us to deliver on plans that are ambitious and realistic. As a system that delivers world class research and innovation, and one which has much to offer – we recognise we have much to learn from other integrated care systems across the country and internationally and learning from others is an important element of what we do.

Founding principles

Our organisational development and system strategy are based on Myron’s maxims. Using these guiding principles of ‘people own what they create’, and the ‘process you use to get to the future is the future you get’ has enabled leadership activity to be distributed enabling a culture of collaboration to develop and enact across the breadth of partnership forums, networks, and programmes. As we progress with the transition and transformational ambition over the next 12 months and beyond, our leadership and behavioural framework will enable us to embed these philosophies deeper within our organisations and teams that make up our ICS.

Your values and behaviours will be fundamental, and you will be a respected, compassionate, and inclusive leader with the ability to work with all colleagues and build and sustain successful partnerships.

The following sets out our mission, values, and behaviours, based on our founding principles.

You can find out more about our leadership journey here.

Mission, values and behaviours

Two nurses We have worked hard to build a way of working founded on the following values:

We are leaders of our organisation, our place and of West Yorkshire
We support each other and work collaboratively
We act with honesty and integrity, and trust each other to do the same
We challenge constructively when we need to
We assume good intentions
We will implement our shared priorities and decisions, holding each other mutually accountable for delivery.

Mission

Reduce health inequalities
Manage unwarranted variations in care
Use our collective resources wisely
Secure the wider benefits of investing in health and care.

Values

We are ambitious for the people we serve and staff we employ
This is a true partnership
We always agree the evidence and data, before acting
We value good governance to make good decisions and choices
Subsidiarity applies in all we do.

Behaviours

Decisions motivated by shared purpose
Empathy with staff and people
Collaboration in all we do
Suspend egos in service of each other
We see diversity as strength
Conceptual and critical thinking
Agility
Willingness to share risk
Sharing power
Retaining accountability giving others authority.

You will bring credible knowledge and understanding to support the delivery of complex integrated working and transformational change. Emphasising and articulating our ICS vision, you will contribute to the principles of our Partnership which has stood us in good stead over the past five years.

You will clearly champion the vision across and beyond the ICS, including across government departments, and with communities that make up our diverse area, and with our regional partners, including West Yorkshire Combined Authority.

This is a high-profile position, and the successful candidate will need to be the best ambassador possible for our system so that together we can create a better future for everyone across our area, within a financial envelope.

Your drive, focus, motivation, and enthusiasm are needed to inspire others. This includes supporting our Partnerships across all our local places - so that together we can influence and respond to emerging priorities.

Most of all we are looking for someone who is passionate about addressing inequalities and achieving the best possible health and care for all people. You will be well supported by our Integrated Care Board Chair, CEO, leadership executive group, sector leads, Partnership Board, and its Chair, who together consider the health and care strategy as well as the wider determinants of health.

We are committed to improving the diversity of our leadership as demonstrated in our West Yorkshire review report to tackle health inequalities for minority ethnic communities and colleagues: Understanding impact, reducing inequalities, supporting recovery so that it is more representative of the people we serve.

Our vision

We have worked together to develop a shared vision for health and care services across West Yorkshire. All proposals, both as partner organisations and at an ICS level should be supportive of the delivery of this vision:

Places will be healthy - you will have the best start in life, so you can live and age well.
If you have long term health conditions you will be supported to self-care through GPs and social care services working together. This will include peer support and via technology, such as telemedicine.
If you have multiple health conditions, there will be a team supporting your physical, social, and mental health needs. This will involve you, your family and carers, the NHS, social care, and voluntary and community organisations.
If you need hospital care, it will usually mean going to your local hospital, which works closely with others to give you the best care possible
Local hospitals will be supported by centres of excellence for services such as cancer and stroke
All of this will be planned and paid for together, with councils and the NHS working together to remove the barriers created by planning and paying for services separately. For example, community and hospital care working together.
Communities and staff will be involved in the development and design of plans so that everyone truly owns their health care services.

You can read 'Better health and wellbeing for eveyone: Our copproduced Five Year Plan' here. This document hosts 10 of our big ambitions:

Increase the years of life that people live in good health, across and reduce the gap in life expectancy by 5% in our most deprived communities and communities by 5% by 2024, reducing the gap by six months of life for men and five months of life for women
Reduce the gap in life expectancy for people with mental health, learning disabilities and autism by 10% by 2024.
Reduce health inequalities for children living in households with the lowest incomes, including halting the trend in childhood obesity
Increase early diagnosis of cancer, ensuring at least an additional 1,000 more people have the chance of curative treatment.
reduce suicide by 10% overall by 2020/21 and achieve a 75% reduction in targeted areas by 2022.
reduce anti-microbial resistance infections by 10% by 2024, including a 15% reduction in g antibiotic usage by 15% by 2024
reduce stillbirths, neonatal deaths, and brain injuries by 50%, and reduce maternal morbidity and mortality, by 2025
have a more diverse leadership that better reflects the broad range of talent in our area
become a global leader in responding to the climate emergency
strengthen local economic growth by reducing health inequalities and improving skills.

Involvement

We are committed to meaningful conversations with people and value highly the feedback that people share with us. Effective public involvement, particularly with those with lived experience and who are seldom heard, ensures that we make the right decisions together about our health and care services.

Young black man People are involved in our plans from the start. Our approach builds on local insight and described in our communications and engagement plan, which enables us to involve people across the whole area from the start. Before developing our Five Year Plan – Better Health and Wellbeing for Everyone in 2019 we worked with Healthwatch organisations to engage over 1800 people about what matters to them – What would you do? These supported our priority programmes and engagement timelines.

Each programme has bespoke mechanisms for engaging the diverse group of people we need to listen to transform services, for example we spoke to over 2000 people about stroke services. We are not complacent, our independent review into public involvement will help us build on gaps and identify opportunities ahead of new legislation. Cancer Champions are shaping the Alliance through a co-production approach. VCSE good practice is shared via resilience events and engagement reports.

Our greatest strengths as a Partnership are equal involvement of all. We are committed to ensuring equitable opportunities for people living across our area, to create a culture of true system working, as set out in our draft involvement principles.

Race equality (more than words)

Our goal is to put people at the heart of everything we do so that together, we meet the diverse needs of all communities. People from minority ethnic communities continue to face health inequalities, discrimination in the workplace and are more likely to develop and die because of serious diseases, most recently COVID-19.

We commissioned a review in 2020 into the impact of COVID-19 on minority ethnic communities and colleagues. Recommendations were published in a report, the delivery of which is overseen by our Partnership Board.

The review includes our award winning Fellowship leadership programme, which has 40 colleagues enrolled. Voices of ethnic minority colleague inform our work. Members have blogged about the training here.

We have also co-produced an anti-racism movement, Root Out Racism, which launched on the 23 August 2021, which has support of over 580 organisations / community allies.

Some examples of the difference we are making together

People, workforce

125,000 people work across the area, and the ICS is increasingly responsible for planning the future workforce and looking after the health and wellbeing of the current workforce. We have an existing People Strategy and a broad range of support for our people, emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes supporting the mental health and wellbeing of colleagues across all sectors. On top of local organisational support, we have the staff mental health and wellbeing hub – open to all – no matter where people work or their role. Alongside the paid workforce, we have a range of offers to support informal carers in our communities, as well as our workplaces.

Members our our Race Equality Network We are working closely with Yorkshire universities to develop a workforce observatory. This will help with new roles and planning as we develop a refreshed People Plan, which reflects the NHS People Plan. This will be reflective of the ‘one workforce’ across our Partnership. It will include health, social care, voluntary, community and social enterprise, unpaid carers, and the education sector. Pressures in the social care sector remain one of the biggest risks to our partnership.

We aim to support 934 people with severe mental illness into employment in 2021/22, and are working with organisations losing employees, to promote mental health advocacy, peer support careers.

Working with the Prince’s Trust we are developing bespoke programmes for mental health careers. Mental health trusts are hosting recruitment fairs to increase diversity of those seeking apprenticeships. We are refreshing our People Plan and aim to have it published early 2022.

Tackling Inequalities

Improving health and wellbeing is at the heart of our Partnership and we are working with people, communities, and organisations to seize new opportunities for improving health. This includes, for example, improving housing for people with learning disabilities and the rate of annual health checks and access to vaccinations, planned and emergency care. People with learning disabilities have worse mental and physical health than people without.

Our work in this space is informed by people with learning disabilities, with input from health and care champions into our priority programmes including cancer, mental health, maternity care, and hospitals working together.

Our Health Inequality Academy is made up of public health experts, health and local authority staff, the VCSE and others. Their work includes reducing health inequalities due to social, geographical, or other barriers and by addressing some of the preventable differences that contribute to inequality; we are tackling the unjust differences in life expectancy which exist across our area. We have recently launched the Health Equity Fellows Programme.

Our environment also has causal links to health, and it is our ambition to work with all key organisations, sectors, and communities, particularly around preventing ill health, promoting wellbeing and climate change.

Primary, community care

Woman using assistive technology Face-to-face appointments still make up most of primary care appointments (61% - latest available data: NHS Digital, September 2021). Surveys suggest strong support amongst some people for a hybrid of digital, telephone and face to face work. Others feel very strongly that they will need to see a GP. Given the scale of primary care – general practice is the biggest provider in terms of contacts, alongside community pharmacy.

Many of our primary care colleagues have been leading the way on the flu campaign and our vaccination programmes, with the tremendous efforts of primary care networks paying off across the area.

They have worked with councils, other healthcare providers, social care, pharmacy, and other primary care colleagues to ensure people receive vaccines in record numbers. There is no doubt that the success we have achieved to keep people safe is down to their collaborative efforts.

We have teamed up with Thrive by Design to seek public views on digital technology to make sure the citizen’s voice is at the forefront of developments to online and video consultations or appointments.

Working with voluntary community and social enterprise sector (VCSE)

The VCSE sector in West Yorkshire includes around 14,900 registered and unregistered groups supporting people in many areas of their lives from youth groups, ageing well support, sports, and wellbeing clubs to name a few. The sector employs around 43,100 full time equivalent posts, which makes up 3.7% of employment across the area.

Three volunteers On top of this there are an estimated 147,000 regular volunteers giving their time and energy to help young and old people to live their best life possible, around the clock, 365 days per year. The recent report we commissioned from Durham University shows the important value of their role.

Working with the VCSE has enabled us to look at what exists in our local places, to share good practice and learning. We have invested over £5 million in the valuable work of the sector, on top of local funding, around key areas of work, such as tackling health inequalities.

West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts

All acute hospital trusts have plans in place to address the waiting lists for planned care, whilst recognising that urgent care levels have increased by 15% since before the pandemic.

The work of our hospitals will ensure that we can move to addressing backlogs in planned care and cancer treatments as quickly as possible. This means that hospitals are working together in very different ways, providing mutual support and shared capacity.

Vascular surgeon in theatre This is not just an issue for hospitals, and system working allows us to address ‘patient’ flow in and out of hospitals, including supporting people with long-COVID symptoms. Support is available in all our local places, with each having referral processes in place to meet the different symptoms of long-COVID which people experience.

Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust and Leeds University have recently been awarded research funding (£3.4 million) to look at the impact of long-COVID on people’s lives. Learning and scaling up good practice is one of the biggest benefits of having an integrated care system.

The NHS also has a range of support and services for staff with long-COVID. Online rehab services are available at Your COVID Recovery Supporting your recovery after COVID-19. Colleagues can be referred to one of the 89 Post-COVID Assessment Clinics by their GP. The clinics offer holistic assessment and help colleagues access the right specialist services.

Children and young people’s mental health

Young woman We have launched a new pilot overnight mental health crisis support line for children and young people. Night OWLS is a confidential support line and online chat facility that helps young people, and their families get virtual support when they need it. It provides a safe space; offers a chance to look at ways for children and young people to cope and to keep themselves safe; supports with finding solutions to problems and provides information about local services for carers. People can contact NightOWLS service for children and young people on 0300 2003900. People who are Deaf can text the NightOWLS service on 07984 392700.

We are building a new £20 million unit, known as Red Kite View. This will accommodate a new enhanced children and young people’s mental health inpatient service.

Planning was approved in December 2019 for the new unit to be built on the St Mary’s Hospital site in Armley, Leeds. The unit will support young people from across West Yorkshire. We’re currently on track to open the new building to young people in December 2021. You can find out more about the new mental health inpatient support for West Yorkshire here.

Support for adult’s mental health

We are modelling scenarios that suggest a potential 30% increase in demand for mental health services over the next three years. We are working hard to ensure this does not materialise. A key area of our work involves looking to address this through early help, and intervention programmes. We have recently launched a new suicide prevention website with links to resources on prevention, training, postvention support for people bereaved and other developments which you can access here.

Other examples include…

Over the past five years, our system working has led to positive change in hyper acute stroke units, vascular services, and assessment and treatment units for people with learning disabilities; specialised child and adolescent mental health services, and adult eating disorder care.
Healthy Hearts: The project had been making excellent progress prior to COVID-19, including around 16,000 additional patients being added to hypertension registers and nearly 22,000 patients with blood pressure better controlled. The team is working closely with colleagues across the region to develop further resources and educational events that could facilitate the work of GPs. A key area of activity has been to monitor the impact of the work through dashboards looking at data for primary care networks (PCNS) and practices. This has made clear the impact that COVID-19 has had on patients in primary care
Our local maternity system has the lowest number of stillbirths since 2015 and has increased the use of magnesium sulphate to prevent cerebral palsy in babies
A third of GP practices are now on board with the Healthy.io project where patients use smartphone-powered home health technology to test for early signs of kidney damage
£5 million funding (on top of local grants) has been invested in the work of the VCSE, £553,000 health inequalities grants and £90 000 from the National Lottery. A £100,000 targeted prevention fund aims to help people disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
Relationships with West Yorkshire Combined Authority Health Education England, Academic Health Science Network, Leeds Academic Health Partnership, med-tech and skills sector, including universities, are supporting people into better jobs. A Health and Care Workforce Observatory will help change how we deliver workforce development, unlocking the power of anchor institutions in our area, enabling the leveraging of economic assets to support prosperous communities, and reducing health inequalities.
An estimated 12,268 of patients had undiagnosed atrial fibrillation (AF), of whom 6,707 patients were at risk of stroke and not protected by anticoagulation, equating to 268 preventable strokes.
128 general practices are part of the initiative, identifying 3,125 extra people, providing anticoagulation to an additional 3,539 patients, preventing an estimated 142 AF strokes, and reducing the use of aspirin by half. Between January 2019 and April 2021, 10,000 additional patients being added to hypertension registers and nearly 22,000 patients with blood pressure better controlled as part of our Healthy Hearts project.
We are spreading the adoption of TytoCare, a wireless, handheld device that allows clinicians to perform medical examinations anywhere, for the ear, throat, lungs, heart, temperature, skin, and abdomen. So far 14 healthcare providers have adopted TytoCare.
We are improving direct care in learning disabilities settings e.g. assessment and treatment unit centre of excellence; we are the first ICS to join the mental health concordat, we are delivering the Cancer SMART programme and introducing new technology to improve diagnostic pathways.
We use real-time surveillance to track instances of suicide, with plans to include attempted suicides. Led by the Mental Health Learning Disabilities Collaborative we have a system wide staff suicide prevention campaign; mental health and wellbeing hub service, bereavement support service and grief and loss support service with a two year contract supporting Gypsy and Traveller communities.
We launched a perinatal mental health campaign to encourage women to seek early help and we are also implementing our Learning Disability Challenge programme of work.
We are piloting NightOWLS, an overnight listening service for children and young people experiencing a crisis living in West Yorkshire.
Our complex rehabilitation project aims 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. Supported by the national NHSE/I team, and with consideration of best practice, our engagement, and a literature review, we have produced proposals for three new regional, tertiary (Integrated Care Service – ICS) services, including CREST (Community Rehabilitation Enhanced Support Team).
Our newly published Psychological Professions Workforce Strategy is an important enabler for our Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism Workforce programme. The strategy spans mental health, community, acute, primary care, social care, independent and the third sector services and addresses the challenges facing the psychological professions now and in the future, including the targets set in the NHS Five Year Forward View and the NHS Long Term Plan.
We have launched a new Health Equity Fellowship Programme and are looking for 30 fellows to join. The role of the fellows will be to actively support WY HCP’s work to tackle health inequalities. The programme will further develop the skills and expertise of people within the Partnership to tackle the causes of health inequality, to build more equitable organisations and communities.
Developing a ‘trauma informed’ approach to our work is essential. Workforce training and working more closely with communities, the police and housing to ensure that together we better support people so they have every opportunity to lead a long, healthy life, free from the impact of trauma from compassionate services is an important part of our plan.
Over 99% of GP surgeries in West Yorkshire now use GP online consultation offering greater flexibility and choice to patients.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance is one of 21 around the country, set up by NHS England. It delivers the cancer priority programme of the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership and is focused on the ambitions outlined in the NHS Long Term Plan for closing the health inequalities gap and improving cancer survival rates through earlier diagnosis.
Patient voices are at the heart of the Cancer Alliance Healthy Communities programme, supported by the Cancer SMART programme, working in partnership with patient led charity Yorkshire Cancer Community.
This work includes piloting innovating projects and campaigns to reach those who do not regularly attend screening and support cancer prevention by promoting smoking cessation, healthy weight, physical activity, and reduced alcohol consumption. The WYH Cancer Alliance community/patient panel is also delivered in partnership with the third sector, through Healthwatch Wakefield.
Collaboration between NHS primary and secondary care, academic partners and the commercial sector are driving forward technology and innovations across West Yorkshire, supporting early diagnosis, improving outcomes and patient experience. These include the Pinpoint Test, colon capsule endoscopy and Cytosponge
Collaboration is also key to delivery of New Models of Care described in the NHS Long Term Plan. be implementing the national specification for Rapid Diagnostic Centres to cover all suspected cancer referrals by the end of 2023/24. The aim is all pathways for urgent cancer referrals will incorporate the seven key components of the Rapid Diagnostic model.
Ten, cancer tumour site specific Optimal Pathway Groups (OPGs) bring together relevant stakeholders to deliver holistic improvements to the patient journey and experience. Through effective partnership working, the OPGs aim to ensure co-ordination and reduce unwarranted variation in outcomes - from prevention, to diagnosis and treatment, to living with and beyond cancer.
Hospital Trusts are working had to ensure personalised care is delivered consistently and to a high quality to all cancer patients, supporting people to live well following a cancer diagnosis, through practical support to clinical teams.

We do hope you found this summary of our work useful and feel inspired to apply.