This week’s leadership message comes from Professor John Wright, Director of Bradford Institute for Health Research.

Posted on: 5 April 2024

This week's leadership message comes from Professor John Wright, Director of Research for Bradford Institute for Health Research. We also have a blog about voting and social work from Elaine James, Head of Service for Learning Disabilities and Preparation for Adulthood at City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council.

Professor John Wright Hello, my name is John.

I have been a doctor in West Yorkshire for over 30 years and Director of Research at the Bradford Institute for Health Research since 2007. During this time I have seen how science and research can transform lives. This was particularly true during the COVID-19 pandemic when our research helped global breakthroughs in new drugs and vaccines that saved lives across the world. Our policy makers boasted that they were led by science.

The NHS has embraced new evidence from its very inception. However, most of our health and wellbeing is shaped by wider determinants: the quality of the houses and neighbourhoods we live in, the design of our urban environment, the air we breathe and the schools where we learn, our access to healthy food and active travel.

So while we know how well our NHS treatments work in improving health, we know less about the more important aspect of what we can do to prevent ill-health and promote a more equitable place for everyone.

Supporting evidence-based policy making: the West Yorkshire Scientific Advisory Group

Last year Mayor Tracy Brabin asked me to convene the West Yorkshire Scientific Advisory Group (WYSAG) to provide West Yorkshire Combined Authority with independent, scientific advice and critical challenge to guide the development of policies. In parallel, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership was developing its research strategy, including the ambition of using evidence to make a difference. Collectively we agreed that WYSAG would serve both organisations, addressing their shared priorities.

In our West Yorkshire universities we have some of the world’s leading experts in physical and mental health, environment, transport, early life and ageing. Combining this with our wider network of national and international experts in these areas, I want us to harness this wealth of wisdom to help us find the smartest ideas, the best evidence to make the biggest impact on people’s lives. WYSAG exists to guide policy makers to make the best decisions and shape a healthier, happier future for the people of West Yorkshire.

WYSAG is:

Policy and practice driven
Systematically collating, appraising and synthesising existing research and evidence
Advisory
Providing interdisciplinary formulated advice set in context

WYSAG is not:

Research driven
Undertaking new research and data collection
Decision making
Providing siloed discipline specific advice independent of context

How?

Flexible working is the first topic jointly identified by the Combined Authority and Health and Care Partnership that WYSAG is exploring. We are testing approaches and applying theories and ideas such as systems thinking to help us provide advice relevant to West Yorkshire.

Over the past few months, we have been working with colleagues from the International Public Policy Observatory to develop a flexible working systems map, considering the economic, health, environmental, equity and inclusion dimensions. It is important to understand not only what the research tell us, but also ensure it is cited within wider evidence from varied sources, including communities and the public, business and industry, public and voluntary community sectors and policy makers. Everything is connected and we want to bring this breadth of perspective into the advice that WYSAG provides. The systems map will provide a reference point of these connections and also help us identify where further insights are needed to advise policy development. We are also learning a lot about different ways of working that WYSAG can adopt and evolve into the future.

Who?

WYSAG is hosted and facilitated by the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Yorkshire and Humber with contributions from Yorkshire Universities and the Y-PERN network (Yorkshire and Humber Policy Engagement & Research Network). We have a core team of representatives coordinating WYSAG from these organisations and the Combined Authority and Health and Care Partnership, including links to the Harnessing Power of Communities Programme and the West Yorkshire Inclusivity Champion. We also have dynamic input, bringing in experts relevant to the topic being considered.

We will share more about WYSAG in the coming months, including our new series of WYSAG Talks. WYSAG Talks will showcase our WYSAG experts and provide the chance to find out more about the big challenges facing us, what the science tells us and what we can do to together to build a healthier future in West Yorkshire. In the meantime, if you’re interested in getting involved or finding out more about ways of embedding evidence into practice and policy, we would love to hear from you. Please do get in touch. There are lots of ways that you can be part of our shared ambition of using evidence to make a difference.

Thank you for reading,
John
@docjohnwright

This blog, about voting and social work, comes from from Elaine James, Head of Service for Learning Disabilities and Preparation for Adulthood at City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council.

Elaine James During 2024 we are going to have a Parliamentary Election in the UK. Social work is closely linked to democratic goals and equality of opportunities for participation. In 2016, the International Federation of Social Workers committed the profession to having a role in building citizenship and democratic structures, recognising that respect for the inalienable rights of the individual is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace.

Not all people across our system in West Yorkshire, however, feel connected as active citizens who have the power to make changes through the democratic process. Faith in the political process, and trust in politics is down by 20% according to the Office for National Statistics. Our system experiences this more than other areas. Whilst turnout at the 2019 last Parliamentary Election was 67.3% across the UK, of the 30 lowest constituency areas for turnout, 10 were in the Yorkshire and Humber.

There is strong evidence that certain groups are less likely to engage and register or turn out and vote. Many who are least politically connected are from the most marginalised groups including young people, those of Black, Asian or Minority ethnicity and disabled people. The Electoral Commission found that people report politics as not being relevant to their lives. Social workers have a key role here, challenging disenfranchisement arising from dissatisfaction is a key social work intervention to redress structural disadvantage and promote social justice. Social workers can help make the connections for people between how policies determine and shape the resources available to support individuals a live a healthy and happy life. More worryingly, those with more severe impairments, in particular people with learning disabilities or cognitive decline, disproportionately face barriers to voting. Social workers have a duty to ensure that no one is unlawfully excluded on grounds of mental capacity from being able to register and participate if they wish to do so.

We are proud that in Bradford our social workers understand this is a key part of their role. Since 2017, we have worked in support of, and solidarity with our local user-led organisations, in particular Bradford People First and the School of Rock and Media, to promote the vote. This includes:

Ensuring that every young person with disabilities who is being supported to transition from children’s services into adult social care knows about their right to register to vote from age 17.
Visiting people with learning disabilities across all our local supported living settings to talk to them about their right to register, provide them with a copy of easier to read resources on voting, including our Bradford Voter Passport, and making small one-off reasonable adjustments to support plans which enable the person to be supported to vote in person if they wish to do so.
Working with our local elections teams to train election staff on reasonable adjustments allowed at the polling station and on the Voter Passport.
Working with social care providers in supported living and care home settings to check if they:
- have a policy on voting
- provide their staff with training on voting rights and reasonable adjustments to support voting
- include (in their support plans) support for people to vote in-person at the polling station, if this is their choice.

This year, we are particularly proud that we have shared our resources and learning to produce a new national practice guide to help social workers across the UK support people with their right to participate in democratic and political life. The practice guide was launched during Social Work Week 2024 by the British Association of Social Workers, Learning Disability England, the National Principal Social Worker Network for Adults and Bradford Council and supports the My Vote, My Voice campaign.

I hope that having read this blog, you will take the time to find out more and look into how you can promote the vote in your local area. Hopefully the practice guide will be helpful place to start.

Thanks for reading,
Elaine
@ElaineLJames

What else has been happening this week?

Healthier Together wesbite - social media graphic

West Yorkshire Healthier Together website

The ICB, has recently been reviewing a sustainable operating model for West Yorkshire’s Healthier Together website, now that the digital accelerator funding for the project has come to an end. The website will continue to be clinically-led, using professional expertise from across West Yorkshire so that it remains a trusted resource for anyone with questions or concerns about the health of children and young people.

British Social Attitudes survey

The latest British Social Attitudes survey results were published last week. Despite falls in satisfaction with health and social care, public commitment to the ideals of the NHS remains strong. The NHS Confederation and NHS England have responded to the survey.

West Yorkshire joins second phase of collaborative learning programme

West Yorkshire is one of seven integrated care systems to join the next phase of a collaborative learning programme to address health inequalities faced by vulnerable groups and meet the ambitions of Core20Plus5 and the NHS England Inclusion Health framework. For more information see the Pathway news pages.

Autism Acceptance Week

This week is Autism Acceptance Week. The Partnership aims to achieve a 10% reduction in the gap in life expectancy between people with mental ill-health, learning disabilities and autism/neurodiversity, and the general population. Achieving this ambition will make life better for more than 200,000 people living in West Yorkshire.

This video has been made by a group of young people who have helped us with our work and explains what life can be like for neurodivergent people. Our ambition is to make the best use of our collective expertise, including lived experience, to improve services, influence the wider determinants of health and in particular address social inequalities faced by neurodivergent people or those seeking a diagnosis of autism and/or ADHD.

NHS England announces formation of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Taskforce

NHS England is establishing a taskforce to look at attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) service provision and its impact on patient experience. ADHD can have a lifetime impact, with a range of interdependencies on the health, wellbeing, social integration, and quality of life of people and families. The new taskforce is expected to engage widely, including with the education, care, health and criminal justice sectors to reflect the fact that tackling the problems people with ADHD experience will need a joined-up approach. More details are on the NHSE website.