Posted on: 17 September 2024
A report released by the Mental Health Foundation has identified West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership as “one of the best in the country” when it comes to planning to prevent poor mental health. The partnership, also known as an Integrated Care System (ICS), is made up of health and care organisations across West Yorkshire including NHS organisations, local authorities and the voluntary sector.
The report recognises how partnership working between organisations has allowed mental health prevention plans to address the connection between mental health and a range of lifestyle factors, such as creativity, housing, transport and employment. This cross agency, comprehensive planning has been described as excellent by the foundation.
The report, titled ‘Planning for Prevention: Unlocking the potential of integrated care systems to create a mentally healthy society’, particularly praised West Yorkshire’s strong ambition to reduce rates of suicide. The partnership recognises every death as a death too many and aims to achieve a minimum 10% reduction in the suicide rate across West Yorkshire over the next five years. Read the West Yorkshire Suicide Prevention Strategy 2022-2027 on the partnership website.
The foundation also recognised the partnership’s focus on trauma which is recognised as one of the major drivers of poor mental health, as well as acknowledging the link between climate change and mental health, and its approach to tackling mental health inequalities.
Dr James Thomas, Medical Director, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, said: “We acknowledge that there is still a way to go before we achieve our ambitions as a partnership, but being recognised at this stage for the plans we have in place is fantastic. We’re building the foundations to give people the best possible chance of living their life in good mental health.
“By working together and planning once across all our health and care organisations, we can deliver more joined up, effective mental health prevention and care for our local population. There is always more work to do, and we will continue to plan and implement our plans in partnership, not only with organisations, but with local people too.”
West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership is committed to involving people with lived experience to plan, develop and improve services. If you would like to have your say on shaping the future of mental health programmes in West Yorkshire, you can find all the opportunities to get involved, now and in the future, on the partnership website.
You can read the full report and recommendations on the Mental Health Foundation’s website.