The final message for 2017 is a Vlog from Rob Webster, CEO Lead for West Yorkshire and Harrogate (WY&H) Health and Care Partnership. Rob looks back over the last 12 months and highlights a few of our partnership achievements. Rob also takes the opportunity to thank dedicated staff and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. To find out more about our partnership, please watch this film where Rob explains in more detail the work we do.

What else has been happening this week?

Stroke task and finish group

The stroke and task group met on Wednesday. This is Chaired by Dr Andy Withers and included colleagues from Yorkshire Ambulance Service, Academic Health Science Network, finance, business intelligence and communications and engagement. The group discussed the next steps of work which includes the care pathways, the work taking place around identifying and treating people at higher risk of having a stroke and the planning of another stakeholder event where a range of people will be invited. There was also a discussion around 7-day hospital services, workforce planning and preventing ill health. You can view our stroke care info graphic here.

Standardisation of commissioning policies

The group, chaired by Matt Walsh (CEO for Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group and Senior Responsible Officer for the programme) met on Tuesday. The agenda included an overview on technology to support planned care and work-stream updates, i.e. clinical thresholds, out-patients, prescribing and supporting healthier choices. Communications and engagement was also on the agenda and a social marketing approach will be considered in the New Year. A WY&H engagement and mapping document has been produced, and will be uploaded to the website at a later date.

West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts (hospitals working together)

Good progress continues to be made on the West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts (WYAAT) collaborative programme. The Board of each of the WYAAT trusts agreed to form a Committee in Common which is responsible for leading the joint work programme and the development of work-streams within the programme. The Chief Executive and Chair from each trust are members of the Committee.

Each work-stream has a number of projects underneath supported by a Lead Chief Executive from each of the six Trusts. The Chief Executives of the six Trusts most recently met on 5 December 2017. Key areas discussed were:

  • The process to allocate NHS England winter funding, as announced in the Autumn Budget Statement is underway. Of the £337m, £200m will be directly allocated to Trusts to support their bottom line and fund those winter initiatives already in place. The remaining £137m will fund new winter schemes and Trusts have being invited to join conference calls to discuss this.
  • The group discussed acute configuration in WY&H and how this may work in the future. An agreed NHS England/NHS Improvement view is required.
  • The Board approvals process of the collaborative business case to establish wholly-owned subsidiaries to deliver estates and facilities services was discussed.

Harnessing the power of communities

The group met this week. This includes Hannah Howe (Director of Volition, part of Forum Central), Rory Deighton, (Director for Kirklees Healthwatch) and Helen Wright (Director for Calderdale). There was an update on the voluntary and community organisations follow up event, carers’ workshop and Healthwatch changing the conversation work. Action plans are being updated following this work. There is also a social prescribing event on the 23 January 2017 being organised by Friends of Hale in Bradford. You can find out more here.

As we head towards Christmas, it’s good to be reminded that the simple things are what keep us happy and healthy. Once a month children from Dewsbury Co-operative Nursey visit Avery Mews Care Home. Healthwatch Kirklees went with them one day, and this is their story. #mincepiemoments #changetheconversation

The Urgent and Emergency Care Programme Board

The Urgent and Emergency Care Programme Board held a workshop on Monday and agreed their top three transformation priorities for the next two years. These are the development of a WY&H model for clinical advice, offering a consult and complete service through NHS111; technology and workforce. Work will begin on scoping these in the New Year.

Cancer Alliance

Tobacco control

Scott Crosby, Tobacco Control Lead for the Cancer Alliance and Health and Wellbeing Programme Manager with Public Health England, met with patients from the bladder cancer support group at St James’ Hospital this week, following their request for further information about access to smoking cessation services. Scott led a question and answer session around a range of other tobacco control issues, including the need to make best use of all the ‘teachable moments’ across each patient’s NHS journey to encourage smokers to quit.

Breast cancer

Our Cancer Alliance is hosting an engagement event next month (11th January) to look at how Breast Cancer Now’s service pledge to deliver patient-centred improvements can be used to benefit a wider group of cancer patients across WY&H. The charity’s Service Pledge programme has been running since 2003 and helps breast cancer services across the country involve patients and staff in reviewing and improving services, based on patient experience and feedback. So far, the pledge has helped improve experiences for more than 30,000 patients at more than 80 hospitals across the UK.

Breast Cancer Now is already working on the pledge with four of the six WYH breast cancer services – Airedale, Mid Yorkshire, St James’ in Leeds and Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust. It is also engaged with Bradford and Harrogate.

The workshop is aimed at promoting understanding of the programme and its benefits and the importance of patient involvement when developing improvement goals.

For more information, contact Angela Millett, Quality Improvement Lead, angela.millett@nhs.net

WY&H finance leaders meetings

Our partnership finance directors met this week to discuss the draft WY&H finance plan. This will be publically available once complete in spring 2018.

Maternity Local Maternity System Board

WY&H Local Maternity System Board received positive feedback this week on their draft plan which was submitted to NHS England at the end of October. There is still some work to do and the Board will be looking at the learning from the early adopter sites.

What’s coming up?

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) editorial group will meet on Wednesday 3 January.

The next leadership day is on the 9 January 2018.

The Joint Committee for the 11 Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in WY&H will meet in public on the 9 January 2018.

For information

The Kings Fund has written an article / blog on accountable care systems. You can read it here.

An event was held last Friday to celebrate the impact of Third Sector Health Grants programme at a showcase event at Horizon, Leeds. Since 2015, NHS Leeds CCGs (CCGs) in partnership with Leeds Community Foundation (LCF) have invested over £2M in a Third Sector Health Grants programme to support new and developed local charities to improve health. You can read more here.