This week’s leadership message comes from Brendan Brown, and our blog is from George Anderson

Posted on: 5 July 2024

To mark the launch of the West Yorkshire Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Hub’s annual report for 2023-24, this week’s leadership message comes from Brendan Brown. Brendan, who is Chief Executive lead for the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership's People Programme, talks about the achievements and challenges in supporting the mental health and wellbeing of more than 140,000 staff and volunteers.

We also have a blog from George Anderson, Head of Contracts (Clinical) at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, reflecting on his lived experience of healthcare and medical technology as someone with diabetes.

Hello, my name is Brendan Brown and I’m the Chief Executive lead for the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership's People Programme.

The West Yorkshire Staff Mental Health and Wellbeing Hub is a vital component of our People Programme. Our focus on preventative measures and specialist therapeutic support interventions for colleagues and volunteers helps us to ensure that our people can cope with the demands that their work places upon them and develops a sustainable support culture to keep people well.

Our Hub is the only known hub in England to secure permanent funding for ongoing support for staff and volunteers working within the health and social care partnership. Confirming financial arrangements took longer than expected, but these are now in place, allowing us to plan with confidence. Looking ahead, we will expand the range and capacity of therapy provision, whilst ensuring it remains locally relevant, culturally sensitive and team inclusive.

Services are open to everyone who works in our health and care system, including those who volunteer, providing our people with free, confidential advice and assistance alongside local wellbeing support. We will aim to be proactive in encouraging all partners to use the Hub services, rather than being responsive to the health and care services that already know about the Hub.

Another big achievement this year is the Hub’s critical incident staff support pathway (CrISSP). This has grown in capacity to a network of over 100 CrISSP facilitators available to support colleagues following emotionally challenging and potentially traumatic events.

The Schwartz Round network has also grown. Several Places have held their first in-person rounds with good attendance and reviews and our system-based approach was showcased with a poster presentation at a national Schwartz Round conference.

We will ensure the Hub remains accessible to everyone, and we are actively engaging with people facing significant health inequalities to eliminate barriers that hinder access to support. This annual report presents what has been achieved to date collectively. I hope you are able to read it in full, reflect on its highlights and respond with your own suggestions on how we can make further improvements. Read the Hub annual report.

Thanks so much for reading,
Brendan

Did you know; if you have diabetes you may be eligible for digital health technology to help manage your condition

Hello, my name is George, and this blog is about my experience of living with and the changes in diabetes care and my hopes for the future.

I became ‘a diabetic’ in 1976 and was the third person on the island we lived on to do so, the other two being my younger brother and father. At that time, diagnosis always meant time in hospital, and I spent four weeks in Aberdeen Hospital being treated. I left there on two insulin injections a day, a very rigid diet, two glass syringes, a plastic holder for the syringe filled with surgical spirits with a spring in the bottom to protect the needle, two boxes of ten reusable needles, which were sent off for sharpening when blunt. And, best of all, a urine testing kit involving a test tube, dropper and tablets for urine glucose and ketones, most of which you were required to carry with you making meals out fraught with difficulty. Diet sheets showing food intake for the day with snacks at 11:00, 15:00 and before bed were restricted to 200 grams of carbohydrates and expected to be rigidly enforced with tight control maintained at all times. Diagnosis of ‘hypos’ (very low blood sugar levels) was tricky as it required either me or one of the people with me to recognise early warning signs as there were no home tests to check.

The ‘80s brought disposable needles, still orange but now sharp for each use and the first home blood testing strips. However, to save costs, the ‘Professor’ (my doctor) got us to cut these into three. Finger pricking was done with a needle, results were displayed by two different colours providing a reading when matched to the colour chart. To be fair, at the time, this was a massive shift, allowing the comfort of knowing what your blood was actually doing. In hospitals this was supported with the arrival of the HbA1c, and for the first time your doctor was accurately able to see whether the declarations in your log book matched your blood. Many people living with diabetes were moved from two to three injections a day with the introduction of long acting insulins - mine was Hypurin Lente.

The ‘90s brought a move to London and the start of my treatment at Guy’s Hospital, which continues to this day, and a period of relative stability with only minor changes in practice. Novopens arrived - these could be carried in your jacket pocket making mobility far easier. The glass syringes made way for single use disposables for those not keen on the pen. Needles were replaced with little finger stabbers and blood glucose testers did it all for you.

The last three decades have seen tremendous life-altering changes for people living with diabetes. DAFNE (structured education) taught you how you can start dosing for what you were eating rather than the other way around, and sweet things suddenly came back into our lives. Clinic appointments became far more variable depending on Hb1Ac results and testing for the complications associated with diabetes improved - twice a year at least half the people in the waiting room had eye drops in following diabetic eye clinic attendance. Medical technology such as tethered pumps arrived and although qualifying as eligible was difficult, we could be confident our diabetic care teams would battle to secure the necessary funding.

My first pump arrived 20 years ago. More recently continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) has spared my fingertips - I can now feel how sharp a knife is and also I can feel pain again when I have to test manually. The technology is evolving constantly: closed loop systems are now actively being rolled out to people and whist this does mean many people are walking around with various ‘tech’ attachments, which at one time were particularly noticeable at beaches and pools causing people to stare, now mostly they go unnoticed. Support is available to help address the consequences of unhealthy behaviours or control complications which in the past were regarded as life threating.

To put the advancements in diabetes care in perspective for you, at 16 I was unable to get life insurance when I started work as the underwriters didn’t expect me to live beyond 45 years! Happily, I have smashed that number and look forward to more years still with smaller closed loop systems which don’t require me to strip my skin every 2 or 3 days as I change the apparatus or pump. However, this is my life and I am living it.

And I am not doing it alone - attendance at hospital diabetes review clinics remains important to me. My hospital visits allow me to hear what is going on, chat with other people with diabetes on ways to improve my control and to continue to learn. The community care I get from my GP and diabetes nurse is excellent. It is a partnership.

And now, with my lived experience, I get to have a role in the spread and scale of access to diabetes medical technology for people across West Yorkshire. As a system, we won’t achieve this overnight. It won’t be low cost. However, it is life-changing - we can help more people to live well for more years and live longer with diabetes, one CGM or closed loop system at a time.

Thank you for reading,
George

What else has been happening this week?

NHS 76

Today is the 76th birthday of the NHS. We want to take this opportunity to thank all our NHS colleagues and volunteers, past and present, for making this organisation what it is today.

Focus on collaboration with patients to promote symptom awareness and screening uptake

Ric Myers, Deborah Adams Richard and Simcox at the Oncology Forum 2024 Trustees at patient-led charity, the Yorkshire Cancer Community (YCC), joined colleagues from West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance to promote their innovative Cancer SMART collaboration at this year’s UK Oncology Forum 2024.

YCC Trustees Deborah Adams and Ric Myers joined members of the Cancer Alliance team at the event to share their work to promote symptom awareness, early diagnosis and uptake of bowel, breast and cervical screening. The programme is delivered by a network of volunteer cancer champions who are out and about in local communities, with funding provided by the Cancer Alliance.

For the first time this year, Cancer Alliances were invited to play a more active role in the clinically-focused Oncology Forum conference and exhibition, which is billed as the only national, pan-tumour clinically focused meeting in the UK clinical educational calendar, attracting a range of colleagues in a variety of disciplines from across the UK.

The event was also an opportunity to share information about the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance’s innovation competition and also the community model of support being developed by Dinah Coggon, the Alliance’s Macmillan Community Personalised Care Lead.

Digital Health Networks Awards 2024 - finalists announced

Congratulations to Richard Main, Head of Digital for NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board on being shortlisted as one of the finalists for chief information officer (CIO) of the Year in the Digital Health Networks Awards 2024.

The awards shine a spotlight on the best and brightest digital leaders shaping the future of healthcare within the NHS. The CIO of the Year award celebrates the individual who has displayed outstanding strategic thinking, innovation and execution in leveraging technology to advance healthcare delivery and organisational goals.

We wish Richard the very best of luck when the winners are announced at the Summer Schools education and networking event on 18 July.

Inequalities action: How PACT is reducing inequalities in Bradford

Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership's inequality action stories spotlight people working to reduce inequalities in the district. This story comes from the Proactive Care Team (PACT) at Bradford District Care Trust, who are making adaptations, such as using interpreters, providing cultural appropriate advice and learning cultural practices when it comes to end of life, to reduce inequalities in Bradford.

Watch the video on YouTube.

These stories are an example of best practice and a reminder that everyone can play a role in reducing inequalities. Learn more about what is being done to reduce inequalities on the Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership website.

The Fellowship Programme

Fellows at the Fellowship Cohort 4 module held in June 2024 Our Partnership’s Cohort 4 fellows had their first leadership development module this month. The leadership and management module focuses on the skills, attributes and behaviours required to demonstrate effective leadership and management. Various models of leadership such as action-centred leadership and situational leadership were explored, before the group had fun with some development activities.

Fellows attending the module said:

"I attended the first Fellowship session today, which was a great introduction. I've been been on numerous leadership programmes, but still learned something new and it was a refreshing approach to leadership. Looking forward to the next session” – Karen Ashmeade

"It’s been nice to finally meet fellow BAME members who are keen to progress in leadership models- showing not all leaders are the same!” – Israr Ali

If you would like to find out more about the Fellowship Programme, or would like to host one of our fellows in your organisation, please visit our Fellowship Programme web pages.

Helping more sports fans stay healthy

Our Partnership's 'Find Out Who You Really Are' campaign, which launched earlier this year, is a health initiative in partnership with professional sports clubs including Bradford Bulls, Castleford Tigers, Halifax Panthers, Huddersfield Giants, Leeds Rhinos and Yorkshire County Cricket Club.

The campaign is being supported by public health colleagues and several local and national organisations including Diabetes UK, Stroke Association, Pumping Marvellous and Get Set Goal. Healthcare students from the Get Set Goal team at the University of Huddersfield recently completing 63 health screens with fans at a Yorkshire T20 game at Headingley stadium. The students offered one-to-one health checks that included blood pressure, oxygen saturation and pulse checks to help raise awareness of stroke and heart attacks among spectators. The students were also involved in some of the 120 quality conversations with fans who took promotional materials away with them.

Health screenings will next be offered at Bradford Bulls on Sunday 14 July. You can find out how you really are any time by visiting www.findouthowyoureallyare.co.uk

Find Out Who You Really Are competition winners and event staff

Find Out Who You Really Are competition winners

As part of the Find Out How You Really Are campaign, we’re also giving away 50 Castleford Tigers tickets, with 24 winners so far. Recent winners include Rebecca Lindsay and family, who went along to the Castleford Tigers Vs Hull Kingston Rovers match on 20 June, and Ryan Roebuck who attended the Tigers V Hull FC match on 24 May with members of his family.

You could still be in with a chance of winnijng tickets to a Castleford Tigers home game that falls between 21 July and 6 September 2024. The prize draw for tickets closes at 11:59pm on 21 July 2024. All you need to do is provide feedback on the website