This week’s message is sent from Rob Webster, CEO Lead for West Yorkshire and Harrogate (WY&H) Health and Care Partnership. You can find out more about our partnership here.

Hello my name is Rob and welcome to this week’s update

There is an adage that when you get tired of saying something, that’s when people are only just starting to really hear it. Delivering sustainable services to the public is a massive challenge– we all know this from the work we do in our organisations and in our systems. It isn’t news to us that things are pressured but the BBC NHS Tracker launched this week has fuelled stories around the NHS routinely failing to meet its targets on cancer, A&E and waiting times.

Alongside this latest set of messages around the NHS have been arguments between national bodies on issues of strategic importance. For example, the Children’s Commissioner has written to Simon Stevens about the way in which the NHS supports services for children and young people. The Better Care Fund and plans for reducing delayed transfers of care have also provoked a frisson of activity, much of it belying the work we are trying to do locally on partnerships between sectors, organisations and places.

In such a context it is important that we continue to have the right focus on dealing with the issues that we face, with the resources that we control, fuelled by the right relationships across our partnership in WY&H. There is no alternative to looking at solutions to the issues we face together, building from our communities outwards.

I also believe that we could be more successful if we were given more autonomy and more control over the resources that will be made available for capital, transformation and workforce development. This is the pitch that Tom Riordan, Julian Hartley and I put to Simon Stevens (CEO at NHS England) earlier this week. This update meeting was an opportunity for Tom, Julian and I to “make the case” for WY&H – we have the scale (2.6 million population, £5.4bn), we have the leadership and the ambition to become more autonomous. We also have the potential to deliver the three aims of the FYFV and the national and WY&H wide priorities. We believe that that WY&H makes an ideal test bed as they promote the development of Accountable Care Systems.

To succeed, we will require the right Memorandum of Understanding, underpinned by the right service, quality and financial strategies. Our system-wide MoU will formalise and codify our ways of working - helping to ensure that WY&H STP remains true to its founding principles. It will also describe a way of working designed to maximise autonomy and control of our resources. To that end we are delighted that Anthony Kealy from NHS England will be joining the WY&H STP Core Team from 1st November 2017 for a period of 6 months. Anthony will be specifically focusing on some of the key actions we need to progress as part of our WY&H Partnership wide Memorandum of Understanding.

We will also need to build on our partnerships at all levels. This has been evident this week, where I have spent time with:

  • Simon Stevens and his team;
  • my Mental Health provider CEOs colleagues discussing our programme of innovation and delivery;
  • the health leaders in Calderdale talking about our plan;
  • the Leeds Health and Wellbeing Board discussing our ‘Next Steps’ document which will update everyone on the work of the Partnership so far and importantly highlight what we will be doing over the next 12 months and beyond;
  • the health and Local Authority leaders in Mid Yorkshire [including partners from Wakefield and Kirklees] discussing sustainable services around the acute trust; and
  • with Local Authority leaders explaining progress on the partnership and next steps.

Every week involves debates and discussion like these. Because we need to ensure that we are building partnerships that work as close to the issues as possible. These are focused on our communities and places and the determinants of health. They have high quality mental health and acute services supported by effective joined up care at their heart. And in a complex system this takes time, effort energy and the space to further develop relationships. The challenge this poses is obvious when you watch the latest Kings Fund animation of how the NHS in England works in 2017 and how it is changing – you can view the animation here.

I believe we are now on the cusp of developing something for WY&H that could simplify arrangements, clarify purpose and join us together for the benefit of everyone who lives in WY&H.

Have a good weekend

Rob

What else has been happening this week?

Information management and business intelligence

We know that as part of our journey to ACS status, further work needs to be done in respect of our information management and reporting at STP level . Some of our WY&H wide programmes have access to information via national bodies or local collections, however this is only a small amount of timely, proportionate and meaningful information on an STP footprint which allows us to understand performance at a WY&H level.

As we move to a system where we take greater oversight of system performance, this lack of information becomes a significant issue and as such WY&H Leaders have agreed to establish a Business Intelligence programme of work across WY&H to help focus on this vital area. I am delighted to say the Phil Corrigan (Chief Executive of the Leeds CCGs) has agreed to lead this programme on behalf of the STP. Work is currently underway to scope this programme and establish a working group.

Urgent and Emergency Care

Our WY&H Urgent and Emergency Care Programme Board met on Monday this week and there was useful discussion about what else we can do as a system to manage winter pressures. We will continue with this discussion at our next WY&H STP Leadership Team Session on 7th November 2017.

STP System Leadership Executive Group and WY&H Finance Strategy

The STP System Leadership Executive Group met this week, chaired by Phil Corrigan, to discuss the WY&H Finance Strategy work currently underway. A number of Directors of Finance from across WY&H also joined the session. There has been lots of work undertaken already, with more to do – but the ultimate aim for the partnership is to end up with a credible financial strategy, owned and supported by leaders across the system, which will provide the platform for financial sustainability across heath and care services in West Yorkshire and Harrogate

Staffing

We would like to welcome Ryan Dobson, a 2nd year as an NHS Graduate Management Trainee, who has a recently joined the WY&H STP Team last week for a 6 week placement. Ryan will be focussing his time working with Emma Fraser to develop the Mental Health Provider Shared Bed Base as part of the work to eradicate acute out of area placements for people in WY&H.

What’s coming up next week?

  • Ian Dodge, National Director – Strategy and Innovation at NHS England is visiting the Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network on Friday

For information

  • The National Association of Primary Care (NAPC) announced this week that its primary care home programme has reached a major milestone with more than 200 sites now serving eight million patients across England. The latest to join the programme is Bradford which will be developing 12 primary care homes across the city. You can read more about the Primary Care Home programme here.
  • A joint initiative, between the medicines optimization team at NHS Bradford City/Bradford Districts CCGs and the nutrition and dietetics service at Bradford Teaching Hospitals which has improved the recognition and management of malnutrition in the community has scooped two national awards. – you can read more here.
  • The Kings Fund have organized a free online event “Making quality improvement everybody's business” between 10am and 11am on 10 November 2017 where attendees will hear from Professor Don Berwick and Professor Jane Dacre on the key things the NHS can do to empower patients and staff to drive improvements in front line clinical care – you can register for the event here.