Posted on: 24 February 2025
- West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership has launched a new strategy to tackle health inequalities and strengthen its work as an anti-racist health and care system.
- The strategy builds on progress made since 2016 and follows an independent review by Professor Dame Donna Kinnair.
- Key priorities include improving employment opportunities, ensuring diverse leadership, using data to plan inclusive services, and reducing inequalities in mental health outcomes.
West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership has launched a new equity and fairness strategy to strengthen its work in tackling health inequalities and further establish itself as an anti-racist health and care system. The strategy builds on progress made since 2016 and sets out key actions to ensure that equity and fairness, diversity, inclusion and justice remain central to NHS leadership and service delivery.
The strategy follows an independent review by Professor Dame Donna Kinnair, a leading figure in national health and care policy and former chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, into how the partnership tackles health inequalities in diverse communities. First commissioned in 2020 to address COVID-19’s disproportionate impact, the 2025 findings highlight achievements so far and recommends next steps.
The 2025 review recognised the significant progress made by the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and its partners in implementing the initial recommendations and achieving remarkable outcomes in advancing racial equity. Key initiatives implemented in recent years include tailored wellbeing resources on grief, loss, and risk reduction, the Mayor’s Fair Work Charter to promote inclusivity, and an expanded leadership fellowship supporting ethnically diverse colleagues.
The review’s new recommendations focus on four key areas:
- Improving access to safe and fair employment for diverse communities.
- Ensuring leadership reflects the diversity of the communities it serves.
- Using data to plan services that meet the needs of different groups.
- Reducing inequalities in mental health outcomes by ethnicity.
Incorporating these recommendations, along with wider health inequalities objectives, the equity and fairness strategy provides a framework for all partners within the West Yorkshire health and care system, including NHS organisations, local authorities, and the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector, to prioritise equality and take action to make real change.
Local communities and health and care staff shaped the strategy through events, focus groups, and surveys, supported by Healthwatch West Yorkshire. The Partnership also worked with trusted community groups and live-streamed interactive podcasts to reach underrepresented voices.
The insight gathered was key to shaping the strategy’s objectives and will guide efforts to achieve equity in health and care services in the region.
Dame Donna Kinnair said: “The West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board and partners have made significant progress on our recommendations, achieving impressive outcomes despite financial constraints and competing priorities. As one of the top-performing integrated care systems in this area, they should be proud of their achievements.
“The Partnership is candid and committed in its mission to address inequities and variations in care. It demonstrates a strong ambition for both its workforce and the communities it serves, recognising diversity as an asset.”
Fatima Khan-Shah, Inclusivity Champion, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, led the development of the equity and fairness strategy. She said: “This isn’t just another equality, diversity and inclusion strategy, it is about our aspiration in West Yorkshire to move beyond a focus on equality, diversity and inclusion, not because it’s not important, but because we want to go further. Truly inclusive and equitable organisations and services mean you get the best people, best ideas and you deliver the best outcomes, and the equity and fairness strategy will support health and care organisations to reach that standard.”
Rob Webster, Lead Chief Executive, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, said: “Part of our mission as a health and care partnership is to reduce health inequalities across West Yorkshire. This is something we have been working towards since our formation and have already made significant progress to date. However, we are ambitious, and the new strategy will help us to go further in making sure we are truly equitable and fair in all that we do.”
Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, said: “Diversity is our greatest strength in West Yorkshire, and we’re fortunate to have people of many backgrounds and walks of life living across our region.
“Tackling health inequalities as well as ensuring that our workforce reflects the community that it serves will make a huge difference to people’s lives, and I welcome this.
“Together with West Yorkshire health care partners, we’re committed to a safer, and fairer region that works for all.”