Posted on: 22 June 2023
A West Yorkshire website that gives consistent, accurate and trustworthy healthcare advice to parents, carers, young people, and health and care professionals was runner up and highly commended at national healthcare excellence awards in the ‘Improving out of hospital care through digital’ category.
The West Yorkshire Healthier Together website (available at www.
ed by local healthcare professionals to help parents and carers keep their children safe and healthy.
West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (WY HCP) launched the website in June 2022 and within the first year has had 96,757 people visit the website. A testament to the useability of the site is that 14% of those using the website were return users with over 204,000 page views.
From chicken pox, coughs, colds and croup to a high temperature and asthma the site provides helpful advice and information when parents and carers might need it the most.
During the spike in Strep A infections in early 2023 the website proved to be an invaluable tool and over a two-day period over 4,083 users accessed critical advice that helped them feel confident in keeping their children healthy and well at home.
The digital platform derives from a national programme initially led by Wessex. The West Yorkshire Healthier Together website brings together both national and local ambitions and aims to improve the health and wellbeing of children and young people l
iving across West Yorkshire by providing a digital solution to accessing information.
The national HSJ Digital Awards 2023 are a special occasion to celebrate excellence in digitising, connecting, and transforming health and care and the website was a finalist at an award ceremony held in Manchester on 22 June.
Victoria Hemming, Consultant Paediatrician, Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust and WY Healthier Together Clinical Lead said “To be highly commended at the HSJ digital awards within the first 12 months of the site launching is a testament to our Partnership. Clinical expertise from a wide range of local health professionals has helped to make the West Yorkshire Healthier Together website possible and we are incredibly proud of how far it has come in a relatively short period of time. Most importantly it has helped many families to access the right information, in the right place at the right time.”
Dr Nicole Allshorn, Bradford GP and WY Healthier Together Clinical Lead said “We are incredibly grateful for the recognition the West Yorkshire Healthier Together website has been given at the HSJ digital awards. From the outset this project has been developed based on the insights of the local population who identified the need for information. There has been a lot of deve
lopment undertaken to ensure the website is the best tool it can be for local parents and carers, and we thank all those parents and young people that have worked with us and helped to make it possible. We’re excited about all the future possibilities the website has.”
Sayma Mirza, Associate Director for Children, Young People and Families at WY HCP said “The West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership was incredibly proud to launch the site last year and we’re thrilled to receive such positive recognition just a year on. This is great news for our local communities, local families and workforce”
The website design is an inclusive resource and the ReciteMe technology means the information is available in several languages, formats and with technology for those who prefer to hear the website being read aloud.
The website is available at www.
