Foreword
In February 2020 we published our five year plan ‘Better Health and Care for Everyone’ which set out our ambitions for the people of West Yorkshire. It described how we wanted to deliver better health and care locally and across West Yorkshire and Harrogate so we can support people to improve their lives with them. Much has changed since its publication, not least the Covid pandemic which has profoundly affected priorities like the early detection of cancer and quick access to treatments. This has meant that we have had to rightly change the focus of our work.
We are living in challenging times. The people of West Yorkshire are telling us that they are finding it difficult to access some of our services and that our children and young people are struggling to access the support that they need at the right time. Our workforce is also telling us that working with significant capacity issues is putting them under increasing pressure to deliver good quality services. Both our people and our workforce are being affected by the cost of living crisis, and we are working hard together as partners to find ways to provide additional support to everyone.
Our strategy is focused on responding to these issues, setting out ambitions to deliver progress against the NHS Long Term Plan, our West Yorkshire ambitions and those priorities for our five places as set out in the Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategies.
We believe that collaboration at all levels is key to this - at a personal level between people and teams; and at a system level through our partnership, our provider collaboratives and our places. Our strategy sets a clear commitment by all partners in.
West Yorkshire to listen to our communities and to support our staff, volunteers and informal carers. Meeting the mental, social and physical needs of people is essential to our success.
We know that having the best start in life and a long and healthy life is greatly affected by things not directly delivered by health services. Having a safe and warm home to live in, having a purpose and having enough income to not have to make difficult choices between eating and heating are all significant contributors to a healthy happy life. We will continue to work with partners in the wider economy such as the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, universities and the West Yorkshire Mayor, to help create good jobs and increase everyone’s prosperity with investment in skills, housing, culture and infrastructure.
We will play our part and are keen to ensure that national and local enablers are in place. A national workforce strategy will help us ensure we have the people we need to deliver safe, good quality care, giving us the ability to plan to recruit and retain the people we need and to innovate with new roles.
It is also important that the funding we receive is enough to help us meet the needs of the people of West Yorkshire, in terms of our health services and also to meet the needs of the care sector. I am proud that in West Yorkshire we have used our resources differently to ensure that health and care staff, the voluntary sector and small enterprises have often benefitted.
We work hard in West Yorkshire to build the relationships needed to deliver better health and care locally. These relationships have enabled us to use our collective resources differently to tackle health inequalities, to innovate and to build partnerships that made sense locally to us. In our new statutory arrangements, we continue to need the freedom and flexibilities for us to innovate and to deliver in the right way for the people of West Yorkshire. Alongside the Mayor, the Combined Authority and every partner in our system, we will do all we can to recover from the impact of COVID-19, our economy and our people.
The last three years have been unlike any other in the history of health and care. We have got through them because of the people we support and the staff we employ. With the right support, we can work together to regain lost ground and build hope for a better future.
Councillor Tim Swift MBE, Chair of the Integrated Care Partnership (known as West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership) and Leader of Calderdale Council
Rob Webster CBE, Lead Chief Executive for West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (integrated care system) and Chief Executive for NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
Summary
Our Partnership is an integrated care system. It belongs to us all – local government, NHS, Healthwatch, voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, hospices, people and communities.
Together, we want to help people live well and stay healthy for as long as possible, and if they have mental health or physical problems, make sure they can easily access services that meet their needs.
The four purposes of our Partnership
- Reduce health inequalities
- Manage unwarranted variations in care
- Secure the wider benefits of investing in health and care
- Use our collective resources wisely
The West Yorkshire five local places are Bradford District and Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield District
Our 10 big ambitions
1. We will increase the years of life that people live in good health in West Yorkshire
2. We will increase our early diagnosis rates for cancer
3. We will reduce suicide rates
4. We will reduce antimicrobial resistant infections
5. We will reduce stillbirths, neonatal deaths, brain injuries and maternal mortality
6. We will reduce the gap in life expectancy between people with mental health conditions, learning disabilities and/or autism and the rest of the population
7. We will address the health inequality gap for children living in households with the lowest incomes
8. We will have a more diverse leadership
9. We will tackle climate change
10. We will strengthen the local economy
How will we achieve our ambitions
- We will be ambitious for the people we serve and the staff we employ
- We will do the work once
- We will work together to understand and address the challenges facing our health care organisations and our communities
- We will work as close to local people and communities as possible
What will help us get there
- We will invest in developing our workforce, ensuring they have the skills and tools they need to deliver high quality care, now and in the future.
- We will ensure that valuing equality, diversity and inclusion is at the heart of all we do
- We will listen to our staff and our communities to ensure that services are good quality
- We will ensure that our decisions are informed by data and intelligence.
- We will use our collective resources wisely
- We will make good use of our buildings to deliver safe and effective services and support investment
- We will continue to develop and deliver innovative ideas and solutions to improve the health and wellbeing of people and communities
- We will consider the impact of poverty, climate change and trauma in the planning of our services
What this will mean for you
- Places will be healthy
- You will have the best start in life so you can live and age well
- If you have long-term health conditions, you will be supported to manage them yourself
- If you have multiple health conditions, there will be a team supporting your physical, social and mental health needs
- Hospitals will work closely together to give you the best possible care as close to home as possible
- All of this will be planned and paid for once
- You can get involved in the design, delivery and assurance of services so that everyone truly owns their healthcare.
More information
Background
Our previous strategies
Useful web links
The five place-based partnerships:
- Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership
- Calderdale Cares Partnership
- Kirklees Health and Care Partnership
- Leeds Health and Care Partnership
- Wakefield District Health & Care Partnership.