Using digital and innovation to support delivery

Our strategy for digital

Our digital priorities

With the West Yorkshire (WY) Digital Strategy, the Yorkshire and Humber (YH) Health and Wellbeing Charter, and the recently published NHS England “What Good Looks Like” framework, the direction and ambition of digital in the region is clear and has the commitment from all stakeholders. Recognising the ambition within the WY Digital Strategy and its associated Charter will need multi-year work and clarity around investment to ensure the steps on this journey are clear.

The ICS appreciates the value of the transformation digital can bring and have agreed to recruit a Chief Digital Information Officer (CDIO) and Chief Clinical Information Officer (CCIO), who will work together to steer the region to meet its digital ambitions with support from their peers from our partner organisations.

As part of our ongoing plans to deliver the strategy, our seven proposed Digital Priorities for collaboration are as follows:

Shared care records

• That each Place has a shared care record available across most care settings.
• That each Place has an agreed strategy and plan for moving to increased use of the regional shared care record and the removal of local solutions.
• That each Place has an agreed data strategy and plan that aligns with the WY Data Strategy to support improved use of data across the ICS.
• That each Place shared care record strategy considers the empowerment of patients through patient held records, patient instigated follow up and digitally connected patients and that these approaches are considered within the ICS framework. Ensuring we utilise digital to reduce health inequalities where possible and offering access and preference to different approaches where digital isn’t appropriate.
• All the provider Trusts are progressing to make a core set of data available in the portal for other organisations to view. We are also engaging with primary and social care colleagues to provide visibility of the data.

Cyber secure infrastructure

• That each Place/organisation has a clear understanding of its cyber security position
• That each Place/organisation has a plan to remediate any weaknesses
• To assess the role of the ICS in supporting Place and organisations, including but not limited to:
• Processes to support mutual aid
• Virtual WY Operations Centre (SOC)
• Shared resources.
• Ensure the WY wide cyber event “war games” becomes an annual event, linking in to the existing team who run the Y&H Warning Advice Reporting Point (WARP). This will become an annual event as part of business continuity planning and organisations will be updating their business continuity plans in preparation for the event of a prolonged period of system outage.
• A West Yorkshire wide cyber plan is also in development, along with a cyber network for interested parties to come together and share best practice examples.

Staff capacity and capability

• For the ICS to understand the digital staff capacity and capability across the region and work with Place leads to agree approaches to strengthen capacity and capability where needed.
• Work with the West Yorkshire Workforce Observatory to understand some of the barriers with the digital workforce.

Legacy remediation

Across most of our organisations there are areas of IT legacy that create risks for both service provision and for the cyber position. The ICS should be aware of these areas, the plans Place and organisations have for remediation and the associated funding, capacity, and capability challenges.

Maintaining the digital networked relationships and collaborative ways of working

• Retain and enhance the WY CIO and CCIO to forge sharing of knowledge, experience and increase opportunities for mutual support.
• Maintain networks for WY digital programme managers and WY clinical safety officers to gain peer support and work collaboratively together.

Embed the engagement

• Between the digital teams, ICS programmes and workstreams (particularly business intelligence, population health management, innovation, and improvement), councils, voluntary sector, other qualified providers, industry partners, HIYH, ABHI, NHS E/X/Digital (now DH Transformation Directorate) and regional innovation partners.
• Align a Chief Information Officer (CIO) to each of the priority programmes to ensure digital is at the heart of any transformation considerations.
• Using the strength and size of the West Yorkshire region to exploit and influence our strategic suppliers.
• Ensure we gain economies of scale for our partner organisations, utilsing our relationships strategic suppliers to drive forward the vision for WY.

Whilst these seven collaborative priorities are core to the work we deliver, we also support the ICS programmes with their individual priorities that are digital in nature and also the provider collaboratives, where they agree single schemes to progress, such as the single laboratory information management system (LIMS) that is currently progressing across WYAAT. The digital portfolio of delivery is ever changing to meet the needs of our services.

Using research to make a difference

All ICBs have statutory responsibilities to facilitate and promote research about health and to use evidence obtained from research in the health services it provides. We continue to strive to use research as a tool to drive positive changes for everyone.

In May 2022 we established the Research Leadership Working Group. With leadership from regional research bodies NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Applied Research Collaboration and NIHR Clinical Research Network Yorkshire and Humber, and membership from places and providers across West Yorkshire, we are working together to identify opportunities and mechanisms to ensure research is embedded into our Partnership.

Our research strategy plays an important part in setting out our vision for research and provides the basis for our plan of action to deliver this. The strategy, co-produced through the Research Leadership Working Group, focuses on our work at a system level which will support work at the place and organisation level within our Partnership.

Our research strategy has five ambitions:

Make research everyone’s business

• Create and encourage a positive research culture and with a workforce who are interested in research to improve outcomes for our communities.
• Everyone to understand how research fits in to their job and inspire a curious workforce that looks to research and other evidence to solve problems and make improvements.

Give everyone the opportunity to be involved

• We will communicate opportunities about research widely and inclusively in our communities to ensure that everyone who lives in WY can take part and feels empowered to do so.

Use evidence to make a difference

• We want to develop pathways at a system level for appraising and sharing evidence that help speed up the translation of research into practice.
• We will also work to embed research evidence in decision making, and make sure that that changes we make are evaluated so that we can understand the difference they make.

Build research capacity

• We will link with key partners in our region to provide development opportunities for staff to become research active and build capacity along the whole research pathway, from idea generation through to research delivery and implementation of findings.

• Nurture collaborative networks for research

• We want to support a network across our five places to share learning, identify best practice in research delivery and work together to promote this across the system.
• We will also link with colleagues in other areas of the ICS like innovation and digital to work together on areas of shared interest and plan the spread and adoption of promising innovations from research that could make a real difference to people’s lives.

Our future plans

WY is home to fantastic research assets and we are now focusing our efforts on making the most of the opportunities these offer to achieve our ambitions for research across the Partnership. We are also working with our colleagues working in innovation across the Partnership to launch a Research and Innovation Network in Summer 2024. Our aim is to create a space for interested members of our Partnership to come together and share ideas and best practice as well as shape priorities and action plans. As ever, we will continue to focus our work around the 10 Big Ambitions to ensure that the work we are doing is aligned to the priorities in our Partnership and that we are all doing our bit to achieve these together.

Our approach and priorities for innovation

The role of the West Yorkshire Innovation Hub

Our Partnership has a vision for everyone in their diverse communities to live a happy, healthier life for longer. This vision is supported by The Hub’s commitment to creating a culture of learning and innovation, recognising that achieving the scale of ambition set out in the Integrated Care Strategy and this Joint Forward Plan will require doing things differently and bringing into practice the best evidence-based ideas from across the region and beyond.

To deliver system innovation, an understanding of process and priorities is essential, at system, place, and provider level. The Hub enables innovative ways of working to tackle the biggest challenges facing the health and care system. The connections and networks made by The Hub position it as the first port of call for anyone seeking support or exploring opportunities for innovation and improvement against WY HCP priorities across the health and care system. It is a centralised resource for other innovation infrastructures (for example the Digital Programme) to access support, such as network establishment and innovation proposals and is seen as a vital partner in the success and growth of the region and its commitment to system economic growth to drive down health inequalities and environmental impact. The Hub continues to drive forward the strategic approach to innovation, and is recognised as best practice in multiple national reviews.

The Partnership’s Inclusive Innovation and Improvement Programme Board (IIIPB) supports The Hub by acting as the conduit for sharing innovation and best practice, removing barriers and blockages, and ensuring inclusive design of innovation programmes. This will be supported further by the development of the Research and Innovation Network, which brings both the research and innovation priorities into a strategic group, where the interlinked disciplines will work together to offer assurance and governance on opportunities presented to the WY HCP.

The Partnership has a strong and long-standing relationship with Health Innovation Yorkshire & Humber (HIYH), a core delivery partner within the system who are committed to supporting WY HCP in the delivery of three core innovation themes:

• Spread and adoption of innovation
• Discovery
• Improvement.

By embedding HIYH staff into the Partnership’s Hub, the ability to evolve and adapt to system needs, help identify the system’s innovation requirements, act as a front door for innovators and support the development of networks which promote the spread and adoption of best practice. The Hub also works to drive investment into the WY system by being the ICB representative on large regional bids, such as the successful Launchpad Bid with Innovate UK which has delivered £7.5million of investment into the WY region, supporting Healthtech companies to develop innovations. The Hub will continue to form long lasting strategic partnerships to benefit both the health system and patient and public in WY.

The figure below shows the role of The Hub within the system:

In partnership with The Hub, HIYH has been working with WY HCP to deliver numerous innovative programmes. These programmes were developed from working with regional and national stakeholders to understand priority areas and challenges. The selection of Programmes being undertaken in West Yorkshire are described below and their impacts include:

• Coordination of a West Yorkshire wide pre-eclampsia testing service and support to the development of regional clinical guidance. This collaborative approach is rare and is being seen very positively by regional and national stakeholders.
• As part of the Asthma Biologics Rapid Uptake Project (RUP), HIYH funded the Straight Talking Project in Mid-Yorkshire whose aims were to combat some of the myths and stigma surrounding asthma. This collaborative project was a finalist for both a HSJ Partnership Award and an RSM Poster Competition looking at Tackling Inequalities.
• Delivery of the Propel@YH programme and intensive international bootcamps has led to multiple innovators (including overseas organisations) locating their UK Main Office in West Yorkshire.
• Leeds Teaching Hospitals were the first Trust in Yorkshire & Humber to adopt XprESS; a minimally invasive treatment to treat chronic sinusitis as part of the MedTech Funding Mandate. Bradford Teaching Hospitals were fast followers and are close to adoption.
• West Yorkshire are leaders in adoption of Medtech Funding Mandate innovations, with engagement and adoption across all acute trusts within West Yorkshire.
• 12 Innovation Exchange Events with over 450 attendees has taken place throughout 23/24. These events link innovations to unmet needs, support them to improve their offer to the NHS and facilitate conversations between innovators and healthcare to improve the health and wealth of the region.
• The NHSx funded Virtual Wards programme led to 1400 patients benefitting in West Yorkshire across its 2-year delivery. A series of resources have been produced to support Trusts to implement virtual wards now the project has finished.
• HIYH alongside the Improvement Academy are leading nationally on the Medicines Safety Workstream to reduce harm from opioid prescribing in non- cancer patients as part of the Patient Safety Collaboratives. This is utilising the expertise in Yorkshire to enable the national delivery.
• HIYH support to the WY Cancer Alliance has enabled the collection of blood samples from over 7000 patients for processing through the Pinpoint project, which is an NHS England funded scheme involving a real-world evaluation.
• SWYPFT and Creative Minds have led on the development of Create & Bloom; a creative health app which (like a creative version of Couch to 5k) guides users through artist designed content in drawing, creative writing, movement etc. all with a focus on improving wellbeing and measuring impact through the NAPC patient activation model.