This week’s partnership message is sent from Professor Sean Duffy, Clinical Director and Alliance Lead with the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance, and Strategic Clinical Lead with Leeds Cancer Centre.

The Alliance brings together key partners across the sub-region, including commissioners, providers, local councils, voluntary and charitable sector organisations, individual patients and support groups to drive and support transformation and improvement across all cancer services.


Hi everyone

I’m delighted to be sending this latest partnership message as it’s been a great couple of weeks for the cancer programme – and therefore our patients - across West Yorkshire and Harrogate.

We’ve been able to write out formally this week to five provider organisations, who were the first 11 projects seeking funding from our Capacity for System Change Fund/Cancer Transformation Fund, and have allocated over £4.5m across the organisations.

This follows our successful Alliance bid for national monies to help us make more cancers curable through improvements in early diagnosis. Focusing on transformation can be tough when we are all so engrossed in the volume and pressures of our daily business. Such positive news and an injection of cash that can make a real difference to service delivery and therefore the patient experience, serves to remind us that our ambitions are most definitely achievable.

It also creates an important ‘feel good factor’ that we all need to experience from time to time, and we can all share in each other’s positivity. That came through loud and clear at a meeting I attended recently with cancer managers, where the mood was tangibly lifted by the discussion around the funding and the impact it could have.

By working in the way we do across the health and care partnership here in West Yorkshire and Harrogate, we ensure that cancer services no longer exist in their own isolated ‘bubble’ but are seen to contribute and add value to the transformation of all services.

The process of informing, encouraging and assessing bid submissions means that we have reached parts of the system that would not normally come into such close contact with, such as diagnostic and radiology teams where the fund opportunities have been met with an appetite for real change to be more responsive to patient’s needs. This, of course, benefits all patients not just those who ultimately will be diagnosed with cancer.

In addition, our insistence that successful bidders demonstrate on how they will roll-out their initiative and share the learning with other organisations reinforces that partnership working underpins everything that we do.

Of course, it helps that the Alliance can provide expert knowledge and understanding of what the national team are looking for when it comes to allocating transformation funding to drive improvements at local level.

But that is not enough. The key to our success here in West Yorkshire and Harrogate is the way we work together and our commitment to integration, both horizontally across and within organisations, and vertically, across community care, hospitals and specialist services. That is what makes the difference. The strength of the message on how both commissioners and providers have collectively supported the bid for funding must not be underestimated and is recognised nationally as a key factor in our success.

Our partnership with patients is also a vital element of this work. Over recent months a number of patients have been willing to share their powerful stories with us, helping to shape our ambitions and influence how we turn them into reality.

Caroline is one of those patients. Click here to watch Caroline’s story.

More opportunities like this will come along and I believe we are ideally placed to capitalise on them. We know that together we can achieve more.

We have every reason to be optimistic – and shouldn’t forget it.

Have a good weekend

Sean

What else has been happening this week?

Developing a memorandum of understanding

Ian Holmes and other colleagues, including Anthony Kealy met this week to discuss the development of the memorandum of understanding. This signifies an important phase of our partnership. This will be discussed widely over the coming months and it is also essential that we build effective and meaningful political leadership in the process.

Working with Academic Health Science Network (AHSNs)

Ian Holmes met with Richard Stubbs and Ian Dodge, National Director for Strategy in NHS England to discuss the innovation and improvement agenda and how AHSNs can play a direct role in supporting STP objectives.

Draft ‘Next Steps’ document

Our draft ‘Next Steps’ document has been circulated to all partners for their comments and the work continues to ensure we communicate the significant progress in terms of engagement, delivery, governance and infrastructure for partnership working and programme capacity.

The document aims to provide a single summary and reference point of the work taking place across our partnership; and describes the progress being made against national and local priority areas.

Workforce planning

The draft West Yorkshire and Harrogate workforce plan has been circulated to partners for comments with the aim of publishing in the New Year.

Leadership programme

We have been successful in the NCVO leadership programme (increasing voluntary sector involvement in health transformation). This will involve five representatives from WY&H programmes and five VCS organisation leads from across the area.

What’s happening next week?

  • On Tuesday the WY&H Public Health Coordination Group will meet. This is chaired by Ian Cameron.
  • The Stroke Task and Finish Group meet on Tuesday.
  • An event will take place on Wednesday 1 November at Calderdale Royal Hospital on celebrating diversity: LGBT in the NHS. Colleagues from across the partnership are very welcome to attend. The event starts at 6pm with a welcome and introduction from Owen Williams, Chief Executive, followed by guest speakers talking about diversity, inclusion and their personal experience of being part of the LGBT workforce in the NHS. There will be panel question and answers before the event ends at 7.30pm.
  • The Directors of Finance will meet on Friday.

What’s coming up?

  • 6 November: An event will take place in Bradford for voluntary and community sector colleagues across the area to discuss who we work together as part of the wider partnership.
  • 14 December: An event will take place in Wakefield around on how best we work together to support unpaid carers across the partnership – recognising the important role of the six local places and the West Yorkshire and Harrogate priority programmes.
  • The Cancer Alliance Board will meet on the 15 November.
  • Regional Lay Member Assurance Group will meet on the 21 November.