Posted on: 25 April 2019
Hello my name is Paul…
It is a great opportunity to write this week’s blog; many thanks for the invitation.
I feel very privileged to be Chief Executive of Craven District Council, one of only two districts and boroughs in the whole West Yorkshire and Harrogate partnership area. We serve a population of around 56,000 over a 450 square mile area, which poses some challenges!
So, what do district councils do and what role do they play in health?
Districts by their very nature are close to the population they serve, and have preventing ill health in their DNA. One of my heroes was Dr John Snow, a Yorkshire man of course, no not the Game of Thrones star, but the first epidemiologist who analysed the cholera outbreak around Soho over 160 years ago - a leader in the development of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. Who did he approach and persuade to remove the handle from the offending water pump – the local district based council! The rest is history.
Whether it be our role in the provision of leisure facilities, parks, museums, waste collection, economic development, housing, regulatory inspections, environmental health... (I could go on), they are all fundamental to the health and wellbeing of our residents, saving the NHS a small fortune and reducing social care impacts. I would also add that these (to me) are often undervalued services and forgotten about in the old medically focused approach of treating rather than preventing illness.
One of our real strengths is working with our local communities, something which councils have been doing for years. Maybe I can best illustrate this with a recent example.
We have worked with a local community group to upgrade the facilities in our local park (Aireville Park) in Skipton. We agreed a masterplan, which included a new pump track, skate park and a really ambitious new play area. In these days of austerity, it was a very far-reaching programme and one we simply could not have funded on our own. The Friends of Aireville Park (FOAP) worked tirelessly to raise money and apply for grants (which the public sector was excluded from), whilst relying on our procurement and project management expertise, as well as our negotiations with developers over contributions from s106 agreements to bring it all together.
The result is phenomenal; in just over three years everything has been completed and the play provision for tots to teenagers and beyond is vibrant, incredibly popular and so well used. The whole project was a real testament to the power of community development and what can be achieved when we work together with our communities.
As you may have guessed, I am a passionate believer in not only what we provide in the way of services but the contribution these services make to the health and wellbeing of the communities we serve. We have seen direct successes on the ground here in Craven with our communities and we are now putting the building blocks in place to extend this further with our partners in health across all sectors. However, I am also a realist and know that the district contribution is small in the overall health model – it may be small but it is still vital in progressing the prevention approach we are all signed up to.
Have a good weekend,
Paul
What else has been happening this week?
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Five Year Strategy Editorial Group
Partnership colleagues met on Monday to discuss the next steps on producing our plan as part of our response to the NHS Long Term Plan. Our plan needs to be completed by autumn 2019. There was an update on the engagement work being led by Healthwatch partners. Hundreds of people have completed the surveys and the focus groups on personalisation and digitalisation continue. The surveys and focus groups will end 3 May. Findings will be shared in a report submitted to NHS England, National Healthwatch and our Partnership in June. There was also an update on the structure of our plan, including the vision to tackle health inequalities as well as children and young people’s health. To support the work NHS England and NHS Improvement will be providing an ‘implementation framework’ for the Long Term Plan in the coming months.
West Yorkshire & Harrogate Health & Care Partnership System Oversight & Assurance Group
The System Oversight and Assurance Group (SOAG) met on Wednesday. This group has been established to take an overview of progress with our shared priority programmes, and to agree collective action to help tackle shared challenges. SOAG heard about progress being made on the work of urgent and emergency care; improving planned care; stroke services; innovation and improvement; and our estates. Financial plans for 2019/20 were discussed, including how we can manage financial risks collectively. The group also discussed plans for the implementation of the Yorkshire and Humber Care Record, and reviewed the actions we are taking to ensure that patients who are referred to hospital with possible symptoms of breast cancer are seen within two weeks.
Working with Age UK
Working with third sector organisations is very important to the Partnership. They have a raft of knowledge and expertise and it’s important we develop strong community relationships with all sector partners. Ian Holmes our Partnership director and colleagues met with CEOs from the region’s Age UK branches on Thursday. It was an informative and interesting meeting covering shared agendas around personalised care, support for older people who are frail, information and advice. There was also an update on some innovative pilots taking place across the North of England and in our areas on preventing ill health. We will be sharing the outcome of the Healthwatch engagement work for the Long Term Plan when the report is published at the end of June to ensure we share learning.
NHS Assembly
NHS Assembly members met for the first time on Thursday. Building on the approach taken when developing the NHS Long Term Plan, the NHS Assembly brings together a range of people from accross the health and care sectors at regular intervals to advise the joint boards of NHS England and NHS Improvement on delivery of the NHS Long Term Plan. The assembly has an agreed programme of work to allow for additional activity to be conducted in advance of meetings to help bring wider insight to the membership as appropriate. The Assembly is not itself responsible for the Long Term Plan implementation and nor does it cut across the current statutory accountabilities of NHS England and NHS Improvement. It has a membership of around 50 people, led by two independent co-chairs (one clinical and one non-clinical). The membership includes Rob Webster, our CEO Lead for the Partnership, Richard Stubbs, CEO for Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network and Fatima Khan-Shah, our lead for the unpaid carers programme. The first meeting discussed the role of the Assembly, the Long Term Plan and legislation. You can find out more here.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Area Partnership (unions)
The Partnership Group which includes representation from the unions meet today. There will be an update on Partnership work, the NHS Long Term Plan, including the work of WYAAT (hospitals working together), West Yorkshire Vascular Services and our workforce plan including the apprenticeship levy. The Partnership Board, which meets in public in June, and campaigns will also be discussed.
There was also an update on the structure of our plan, including the vision to tackle health inequalities as well as children and young people’s health. To support the work NHS England and NHS Improvement will be providing an ‘implementation framework’ for the Long Term Plan in the coming months.
Improving Planned Care
At their meeting on Thursday 25 April, members of Havercroft Parent Forum shared their experiences of eye care services with epresentatives from the Partnership’s Improving Planned Care Programme, and from Wakefield Council’s Public Health Team.
The group discussed the importance of having regular eye tests and agreed that the main reason people don’t have regular eye tests is usually because they think their vision is fine.
Tracy Leach, lead officer for the council’s Preventable Sight Loss campaign, introduced the group to the Eyes Right Toolkit. This is a simple tool designed to screen near and distant vision that can be used by anybody.
Group members were happy to test each other and found it to be very straightforward and quick to do. In fact, Forum members were so impressed by the toolkit that they are planning to use it to offer free eye tests at their Fun Day on 31 May.
It's important to remember that the eye screening test will not detect all eye conditions and it’s not an alternative to having a full eye examination by an optometrist. What it can do is give a good indication if there is a problem and when the person being screened should go and see an optometrist to get everything checked out.