Hello, my name is Paul.
I joined the Partnership team a couple of months ago as Chief Information Officer, and will be working closely with Dawn Greaves, Digital Programme Manager and Dr Liz Mear, Senior Responsible Officer. Liz is the Managing Director at Leeds Academic Health Partnership.
I’m also Chief Digital and Information Officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, which gives me a really thorough understanding of the day to day digital issues and challenges at the sharp end - the point of care. Leeds has always been a pivotal part of the West Yorkshire & Harrogate Partnership, so I’m delighted to be in post, looking at how we develop and deliver our digital plans to benefit the 2.7 million people living in our area.
We’re already doing a lot of work around shared care records and digital inclusion, and I’m really looking forward to supporting the evolution of both these priorities so we can deliver further benefits to support patient care. Another area that particularly interests me is the support we provide to primary care. The partnership plays an important support role here, helping primary care organisations do things they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. Recent examples include the procurement of the video conferencing service used by GPs and also the e-triage service, which is now the front door to many practices.
One of my first jobs is reviewing and simplifying our digital strategy, making sure we’re ambitious in what we can do as a region but also pragmatic. We’re dealing with people who are busy - there’s a national emergency, a vaccine programme to deliver and also the usual winter pressures to consider. Everyone is working at full capacity already so we need to be realistic about the amount of time we ask people to commit at the moment.
I also want to make sure that there is a very clear line of sight between digital initiatives and improvement in people's care. It’s easy to get carried away with the potential of digital solutions but they’re worthless if they don’t deliver the end game. Achieving line of sight might just be as simple as understanding a bit more about how those things operate, it might be a slight tweak, or just about getting the right commitments or plans in place. But I think we need that transparency — we need visibility about how we improve patient care. I also think this is a key motivator for people too. We don’t work in health because we like doing lots of tech stuff, we work in health because we want to improve people’s lives.
I’m delighted to be part of the team, and looking forward to working with everyone to realise the true digital potential of our integrated care systems.
Have a good and safe weekend
Paul
West Yorkshire Prepared, the region’s Local Resilience Forum, met last week in light of increasing COVID-19 rates across the region and the presence of the new variant in our communities, and is urging everyone to recognise that time is of the essence in our fight against the pandemic – West Yorkshire must act now to prevent a similar experience to that seen in other parts of the country.
The first meeting of the latest shadow leadership group was on Monday. Fifteen from the twenty participants are from the Partnership’s Black, Asian Minority and Ethnic (BAME) Network. The meeting was chaired by 
The Clinical Forum met virtually on Tuesday. The meeting was chaired by 
Public Health England has launched a major 
Our Partnership’s ‘Check-in’ campaign aims to reduce staff suicide and promote wellbeing as well as providing training, resources and signposting for support.
Before Covid, many patients and healthcare staff found virtual consultations to be a convenient alternative to face-to-face assessments. Throughout the pandemic however, virtual consultations have been more than just convenient - they have been essential to help keep both patients and staff safe. Virtual consultations have provided a way for healthcare staff to safely group patients, selecting the most appropriate method of consultation. It has allowed the practice of social distancing, adherence to national recommendations and avoidance of unnecessary travel to reduce infectious contacts, promoting population health.