This week’s leadership message comes from our new West Yorkshire Allied Health Professional support workforce leads Salimah Elimihele and Joanne Ogden

Posted on: 21 March 2025

From hands-on care to championing support workers: our journey as the new West Yorkshire support worker leads

Salimah Elimihele and Jo Ogden

Hello. We’re excited to introduce ourselves as the new support worker leads for West Yorkshire. Coming from different healthcare backgrounds, one of us as a dietetic assistant practitioner, supporting people with nutrition and wellbeing, and the other as an orthopaedic assistant practitioner, helping patients with mobility and recovery, we have seen firsthand the dedication and impact of support workers across health and care services. While our roles have been different, we share a deep passion for ensuring that support workers are valued, supported and given opportunities to grow.

Support workers are at the heart of patient care. We are the ones who offer reassurance, provide hands-on support and help teams run smoothly. Yet our contributions are often overlooked and career progression feels unclear. We know the struggles of wanting more training but not knowing where to find it, feeling ready for a new challenge but not seeing the path forward and giving so much to our roles but not feeling recognised. That’s why we stepped into this position, to be the voice for support workers and to help drive meaningful change.

Our goal is simple. To ensure support workers feel empowered, recognised and connected. We want to create better career pathways, improve access to training and development and build a strong support network where we can learn from and uplift each other. Wellbeing is also a key focus. Supporting others starts with looking after ourselves and we want to ensure every support worker has access to the resources they need to thrive.

This work aligns with the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) vision of improving workforce development, reducing health inequalities and strengthening patient care. Investing in support workers isn’t just about individual development, it’s about improving healthcare as a whole. When support workers are valued and supported, teams function better, staff retention improves and patients receive higher-quality care.

Additionally, this work closely ties into the objectives of the West Yorkshire Allied Health Professional (AHP) Faculty which focuses on building a sustainable, inclusive and well-supported workforce. By enhancing education, training and career progression opportunities for support workers, we contribute to a system that develops skilled professionals and retains talent, ensuring long-term resilience in our healthcare services. Together, we are driving forward a workforce strategy that prioritises learning, collaboration and improved access to professional development for all support workers across West Yorkshire.

We know change doesn’t happen overnight, but we can build a future where support workers are recognised for their skills and dedication. We’re here to listen, advocate and make a difference. Whether you’re a support worker yourself or someone who wants to contribute to improving our workforce, we’d love to hear from you. Let’s work together to create opportunities, raise awareness and ensure that support workers across West Yorkshire have the support they deserve. This is just the beginning, and we’re excited for what’s ahead - let’s make it count together.

Thank you for reading and please get in touch if you’d like to know more.

Salimah Elimihele: salimah.elimihele@nhs.net, LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/salimah-elimihele-b282421b4

Joanne Ogden: joanne.ogden2@nhs.net

An update from Rob Webster, Chief Executive, NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) and Lead Chief Executive for West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, on recently announced requirements for NHS bodies, including the ICB, to significantly reduce costs

Rob Webster I wanted to thank everyone who has shared messages of consideration for ICB staff over the last few days. The news last week of NHS England (NHSE) being absorbed into the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and running cost reductions for ICBs continues to dominate media headlines. The national announcement also included reference to a 50% reduction in corporate cost growth for providers across the country (for example corporate services, non-patient-facing clinical posts), as well as reference to a reduction in provider collaborative spend and operational delivery networks. These changes affect us all, and, for some of our staff, all members of the family.As always, we must continue to support each other during these challenging times.

At the time of writing (20 March), we have no more information from Government or NHSE about the reduction in ICB running costs, along with other areas of reduced spend and growth referenced in the announcement last week. We expect to hear more in the next few days and hope we will have more clarity on the expectations.

At times like this, the rhythm and flow of communication is vital and with this in mind, we will share updates with key partners each week, as well as in these weekly partnership updates. It is also important to remember that the news last week not only affects colleagues in NHSE and ICBs; these changes affect everyone.

In the meantime, we have identified some immediate priorities that the ICB Executive Management will oversee to understand key processes and timescales and to agree how we will deliver this programme. Working with our partners will be crucial and your continued support, focus and efforts are appreciated.

On Monday this week, NHSE transition CEO Sir Jim Mackey named the leaders that have been co-opted into the transformation executive team.

On Tuesday, the Board of the ICB met in public. We spent an hour looking at the progress made through a population approach to tackling inequalities in maternal health. It’s a great reminder of why the ICB and wider partnership exists, when you can see a targeted, evidenced-based approach is reducing stillbirths, the gap in rates due to inequality and massively reducing maternal smoking rates. It’s also a reminder of the significant work to do, with poverty and ethnicity driving ongoing disparities. Thanks for your role in all of this and also the substantial work on the 2025/26 planning round, also discussed at the Board.

Working with all our partners will be vital as we respond to the changes being driven nationally. We will develop what will inevitably be a significantly smaller organisation to support our system in place and across West Yorkshire. Here and now, it is important we all continue to work at pace on provider collaboration in place and continue with our important work as a partnership to develop our plans in response to the national planning guidance published a matter of weeks ago. I would like to thank everyone for your continued focus and efforts on this.

I remain proud of the work the ICB and our West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership. We have a strong track record of delivery, and an approach built firmly on doing the right thing for people in these difficult times.

With best wishes,
Rob

What else has been happening this week?

Leeds City Council Chief Executive appointed to the ICB Board

Dr Ed Whiting, Chief Executive of Leeds City Council has been appointed to the ICB Board as Partner Member: Local Authorities to advocate on behalf of the local authorities across West Yorkshire, including North Yorkshire Council.

We would like to thank Mariana Pexton for her leadership and significant contribution to the Board of NHS West Yorkshire and the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership during her time as Interim Partner Member.

Ed joined Leeds City Council as Chief Executive in January 2025 following Tom Riordan CBE’s departure. He has spent most of his career working in a number of central civil service departments, including in the Financial Stability Unit of HM Treasury through the 2008-09 financial crisis and as Deputy Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister between 2014 and 2016. Most recently, Ed was Director for Cities and Local Growth, leading a joint unit shared between the Business and Communities Departments working on the government’s local economic growth priorities.

Cathy Elliott, Chair of NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, said: “I am pleased that Ed has been appointed to this important role on the Board of NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board. Ed’s experience is substantial, with a real commitment and focus in reducing health inequalities and furthering our collaborative work in achieving integrated care for the communities of West Yorkshire. The Board of NHS West Yorkshire look forward to working closely with Ed, as we work together to deliver our 10 big ambitions outlined in our Integrated Care Strategy.”

Ed will take up this additional role from 1 April 2025.

Creating race equality in practice

The latest edition of Health Leaders Journal features an article by Rob Webster, CEO of the ICB and lead Chief Executive of the Partnership, and Professor Rajeev Gupta, Chair of the Race Equality Inclusion Network. They reflect on work taking place in West Yorkshire to learn from experience and working with the Asian Professionals' National Alliance (APNA NHS) to address issues of racism that affect many of our colleagues’ professional and personal lives.

Recognising the impact of the Improving Population Health Fellowship

Jacob receiving his certificate and Robin Tuddenham The Improving Population Health Fellowship has successfully completed another year, with 86 fellows taking part. This includes, for the first time, individuals from Humber and North Yorkshire alongside those from West Yorkshire.

This year’s cohort celebrated their achievements at a special ceremony last week where they received their certificates.

See our news pages for more information.

BBC One Show features Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust work to cut waiting lists

Collage of images from The One Show filming at at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary

Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust (CHFT) was this week featured on the BBC One primetime programme, The One Show, for its work to cut waiting lists to one of the lowest in the country.

The surgical team at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary welcomed presenter Kevin Duala, who met with colleagues about how the trust has brought down waiting lists and is consistently named as one of the top-performing trusts for waiting times in the country. Find out more on the CHFT website.

Neurodiversity Celebration Week, 17-23 March

Neurodiversity toolkit for emploeyer, managers, staff and applicants This week, 17 to 23 March, we celebrate Neurodiversity. Neurodiversity Celebration Week is about challenging misconceptions, breaking down barriers and celebrating the incredible strengths and talents of neurodivergent individuals. As part of this, the Partnership’s groundbreaking toolkit provides a range of resources for employers and managers across the health and care sector to use in supporting neurodivergent staff and applicants.

Having a diverse workforce and supporting our staff to flourish and look after their wellbeing is a key priority for the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership. Investing in diversity of thought and lived experience benefits patients and staff. It helps recruitment and retention which are crucial when workforce challenges are as difficult as they currently are.

The new toolkit and our reasonable adjustments resources amount to a comprehensive suite of materials that are designed to be appealing and useful to everyone. They are free to download and share now.