This week’s message is sent from Marie Burnham, Independent Lay Chair for the West Yorkshire and Harrogate, Joint Committee of the 11 Clinical Commissioning Groups. You can find out more about the Joint Committee here.

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

It’s great to be writing my first message for West Yorkshire and Harrogate Partnership, in my role as Independent Lay Chair for the Joint Committee of the 11 Clinical Commissioning Groups.

I have over 20 years senior management experience ‎working in health care and charities, including NHS executive and non-executive roles with responsibility for performance and governance (including hospitals and community led organisations). I’m also a mum of two children and like many of you I’m keen to understand what transformation really means for health care services, now and in the future, and what we need to do to make change a positive one.

So with this in mind, I write this week’s message wearing various hats, yet all with a common purpose – to have the best health care possible for everyone, young and old, and of a quality we would wish for ourselves, our family and friends.

Chairing the Committee puts me in a privileged position. I hear first-hand from health professionals (including consultants and doctors) about the services being delivered across the area. I also hear loud and clear the partnership’s ambitions to further improve care for the 2.6 million people living across West Yorkshire and Harrogate. This isn’t easy – we all know we are living in challenging financial times and that health care services, including staff, are working under tremendous pressure. You don’t have to look far to see evidence of this; be it people we know working in the sector or those we care for receiving treatment, for example stroke services, urgent and emergency care, medication and elective surgery. All was discussed at the Committee meeting held in public on Tuesday.

Dr Andy Withers (Chair of the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Clinical Forum and Clinical Chair for Bradford District CCGs) and Jo Webster (Senior Responsible Officer for the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Stroke Programme and Chief Officer for Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group) gave an update on stroke work including the next steps.

We are currently looking at how we develop good care to prevent strokes, deliver effective care when people suffer a stroke and ensure that there is good support and rehabilitation for people after a stroke. We are using evidence from the stroke strategic case for change and the engagement programme to support this work. The work taking places falls into two categories:

  • Stroke prevention. We know that Atrial Fibrillation (AF) is a major factor that causes stroke (AF causes fast and erratic heartbeat). This work is about further improving the way we detect and treat people who are at risk of stroke. The Committee agreed that we should aim to set an ambition of 89% (9 out of 10) identification and management of AF – which will save lives and reduce demand on acute stroke services. We estimate that this will save 190 lives.
  • Hyper acute stroke services. We are also developing proposals to determine the service delivery models, standardised pathways of care and clinical standards for our specialist stroke services (the care people receive in the first few hours and days after having a stroke). Further work with all stakeholders, including the public will follow – starting with a further discussion with our clinicians and other health care professionals later this month.

There is a big opportunity across planned care to standardise our ways of working so that treatment and care is fair and consistent no matter where people live. Dr James Thomas and Catherine Thompson (programme leads) came to the Committee to get agreement to a proposed work programme to address this. The work includes supporting people to make healthier choices, reducing variation and inconsistency in policy and practice, for example weight management operations. An important part of this is having good community conversations. A further discussion will take place at the Committee meeting in March.

With winter well on its way, Nigel Gray (Chief Officer - System Integration) and Keith Wilson (programme manager) came to the Committee to discuss the work of the Urgent and Emergency Care Programme Board. Winter pressures in health and social care come every year but despite planning it always remains a challenge. Our six local places have developed winter plans, which include what happens if A&E attendance rises. Many of those most affected tend to be elderly and vulnerable people and there is a national programme to ensure care home staff have their flu vaccination. All our health services are ensuring front line staff also have the opportunity to be vaccinated. Nigel stressed the need for health and social care to work closer to together to better support people, especially around delays in discharge, where we have seen a rise in last 2 years.

I would like to thank everyone who came to the meeting on Tuesday, including the public, to discuss our work plan priorities. I’d also like to thank Stephen Gregg (Governance Lead, West Yorkshire and Harrogate Joint Committee of CCGs) and Lauren Phillips (West Yorkshire and Harrogate, Health and Care Partnership Programme Lead) for their organisation skills. Notes from the meeting will be available in the next few weeks here. The next meeting in public will take place on Tuesday 9 January – you can view the meeting live here too.

Have a good weekend

What else has been happening this week?

West Yorkshire and Harrogate VCS partnership event

More than 80 voluntary and community sector (VCS) representatives from West Yorkshire and Harrogate attended the first of a series of partnership events in Bradford on Monday. The purpose of the event was to help them find out more about the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership. You can read more here.

The Clinical Forum

The Clinical Forum, Chaired by Dr Andy Withers, met on Tuesday; the forum includes the Clinical Chairs of the Clinical Commissioning Groups, chief medical directors of hospitals, lead nurses, Yorkshire Ambulance Service, public health and NHS England colleagues. The forum discussed weight loss surgery, in particular commissioning for effective clinical outcomes and work to prevent and reduce obesity. There was also a progress update on the development of a West Yorkshire and Harrogate clinical narrative.

Shane Haywood-Giles, from NHS England gave a presentation on diabetes and cardio-vascular (e.g. heart disease) and the importance of preventing ill health and reducing the numbers of people dying earlier rather than later in life. Forum members discussed the role of identifying people at risk of heart diseases and some of the good practice taking place across the area to counteract this, for example Bradford Healthy Hearts who have won a national award for their work.

System Leadership Session

The System Leadership Group met on Tuesday to discuss potential national funding and workforce planning. Dr Ros Tolcher and Mike Curtis discussed the draft work force plan, namely training people for a future career in health and social care, growing general practice community support and staff investment. There was also an update on the development of the ‘Care Home Charter’ for West Yorkshire and Harrogate.

Wider Leadership Session

Cormac Russell came to the leadership session to talk about the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) way of working. This includes developing and investing in communities. There was also a good discussion around what are the community alternatives to the way we work and the power of social movement. Including the fact that health and social care services don’t always have to be involved but when we do, how do we move from being a host, to a guest in people’s lives. The take away messages were:

  • Shift from expert to collaborator
  • Shift from deliverables to discoverables
  • Shift from co-production to portionality

Whilst on the theme of communities, Dr Andrew Sixsmith and Gulnaz Akhtar (NHS England) gave an overview on enabling the left shift i.e. treating people’s mental and physical health together and not in isolation of other factors, such as where people live and the circumstances which influence ill health. This also involves treating more people in primary care or in the community, to reduce referrals and treatment in hospitals. Key to this is people having greater involvement in decisions about their care.

What’s happening next week?

  • The Directors of Finance will meet on Monday.
  • Ian Holmes (Director for the Partnership) and Lauren Phillips (Programme Lead) will meet with Steven Courtney from Leeds City Council on Monday to discuss the partnership’s work plan for the Joint Health and Overview Scrutiny Committee.
  • The six local place planners will meet on Tuesday.
  • NHS England is hosting a unpaid carers lead session on Thursday.
  • Interviews for the Regional Head of Healthcare Partnerships takes place on Friday.
  • Colleagues in the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance are currently preparing for their second stakeholder symposium, which takes place on 28th November. The event is a follow-up to a previous event, which was held in June, and will bring together Alliance Board members, Chairs and members of the five Alliance project groups (patient experience; early diagnosis; living with and beyond cancer; high quality services and tobacco control) and cancer patients.
  • The Alliance team will also be taking part in the Yorkshire Cancer Research conference, Life with Cancer, next Thursday (16th November) in Harrogate. The event is a day for people across the whole of Yorkshire affected by cancer – patients, carers and supporters – and will be a great opportunity for the Alliance to learn more about their experiences and hopes for the future