Hello my name is Ros

Our Partnership published its workforce plan ‘A healthy place to live, a great place to work’ this week.

The plan describes how the health and social care workforce of over 100,000 across our area is changing to meet the current and future needs of the 2.6 million people living here.

You don’t need to look far to understand why reshaping healthcare requires a reshaping of the health and care workforce. This important area of development is often in the news and we all know that health and care staff, regardless of where they work are our biggest asset.

New teams are emerging with an increased role for non-medical staff to work alongside medical staff; non-registered staff to work alongside registered professionals and new roles alongside traditional ones. Reshaping existing roles and teams whilst making the many different jobs available rewarding and fulfilling is a Partnership priority.

Our plan also recognises the huge contribution community organisations and volunteers make; and the vital role of the 260,000 unpaid carers who care for family and friends and whose numbers are more than that of our paid workforce.

Supporting working carers is also an important partnership priority and we will have the opportunity to raise the profile of the care they give to family, friends and neighbours during Carers Week which takes place from 11-18 June.

Our plan also highlights the greater role for people working outside of hospitals, where most health and social care support takes place, for example in local neighbourhoods by community providers.

Having a capable and motivated workforce is therefore crucial to sustaining high quality care for everyone. Our plan is all about ensuring that we have the right workforce in place to deliver our ambitious plans.  Key to achieving this is the way we work together as a joined up health and care workforce, and one that doesn’t compete for resources and skills to address the recruitment and retention gaps we have in health and care - whether in a hospital, community or a care home.

We also have a strong track record of clinical transformation and workforce innovation and we have drawn on the collective skills and insights of all sectors to develop our plan.

Staff knowledge, expertise, hard work and professionalism is at the heart of all the services we provide. Supporting staff, whilst creating a workplace where everyone feels engaged, motivated and fulfilled goes a long way to ensuring West Yorkshire and Harrogate is ‘A healthy place to live, a great place to work’. You can read the plan here

A public summary, EasyRead and BSL version is also available at https://www.wypartnership.co.uk/our-workforce-strategy

Have a good weekend

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What else has been happening this week?

 West Yorkshire and Harrogate Clinical Forum

The Clinical Forum met on Tuesday. The meeting was chaired by Dr Andy Withers. Forum members include medical directors, clinical commissioning group clinical leads, lead nurses for the area and colleagues from Yorkshire Ambulance and NHS England. There was an update on the stroke care programme which included a workforce discussion. There was also an overview on the recent engagement that has taken place with people who have had a stroke, their carers and community organisation representatives. You can read more here.

Mike Potts, Tony Jamieson (Academic Health Science Network) and Lauren Phillips from the team gave an update on the innovation and improvement programme. Innovation and improvement is one of the key enabling workstreams that will support our collective ambition to improve health and services for the people of West Yorkshire and Harrogate. It is widely acknowledged that doing more of the same will not meet the challenges of the future and there is a need now, more than ever before, to maximise the value from innovation and improvement. This includes strengthening the partnership with Yorkshire and Humber Academic Health Science Network including the development of a shared programme of work for 2018/19 and working more closely with the Leeds Academic Health Partnership.

Shane Hayward-Giles from NHS RightCare also presented information on reducing respiratory variations and non-elective respiratory admissions during the winter period.

There was a national event on Thursday for clinical leads working on health and care partnerships. Dr Andy Withers and Joanne Crewe, from Harrogate and Rural District Clinical Commissioning Group attended the meeting.

Joint Committee of Clinical Commissioning Groups

The Joint Committee of Clinical Commissioning Groups met on Tuesday. The meeting was held in public and you can view the webcast, agenda and papers here. The Committee has delegated powers from the CCGs to make collective decisions around specific work programmes, for example cancer, mental health, urgent care and stroke. Although the Committee supports the wider Partnership, it only includes CCGs and does not represent all of the partners involved in our work.

The meeting was chaired by Marie Burnham [Independent Lay Chair] and a number of questions from the public were received about the agenda items. This included the procurement process for commissioning out of hour’s primary care medical services; the use of RightCare data for improving outcomes for people with CVD and diabetes; and elective care. Many of the questions were answered direct by the Committee. All questions and answers will be published on our website as soon as possible at www.wyhpartnership.co.uk.

There was a presentation from Dr Youssef Beaini and Sue Baughan on improving outcomes for people with CVD and diabetes. The Clinical Forum had identified the potential to make significant improvements in outcomes through joint working. The Committee recommended that all the CCGs work across the area to increase the number of people with or at risk of CVD and diabetes so they receive support to prevent long term ill health.

Martin Pursey, Head of Contracting and Procurement for Greater Huddersfield CCG, gave an update on proposals for commissioning out of hour’s primary care medical services across West Yorkshire.  The Committee agreed to negotiate a direct award of contract with Local Care Direct to continue provision of the service to March 2020 and to re-procure the service from 2020.

 

Michelle Turner presented proposals to improve outcomes for people with severe and complex obesity.  The Committee recommended that the CCGs agree a collaborative approach to commissioning bariatric surgery, including a new service specification. The Committee also recommended the CCGs to increase the number of people offered surgery and work with acute trusts on how any additional capacity could be provided.

The Annual Report for the Committee was signed off and will be published on our website soon.

System Leadership Executive Group Meeting

The executive group met on Tuesday afternoon. The group includes representatives from across all our sectors, including councils, hospitals, clinical commissioning groups, Healthwatch and voluntary organisations. The meeting was chaired by Rob Webster our CEO Partnership Lead.

The purpose of the session was to have a conversation about what being an integrated care system means for West Yorkshire and Harrogate and how working arrangements with NHSE and NHSI might evolve to support this way of working.

Michael Macdonnell and Richard Barker (NHS England) and Lyn Simpson (NHS Improvement) attended the session to discuss this work, and how working arrangements with NHSE and NHSI might evolve to support this way of working. It’s important to note that being part of an integrated care system development programme does not change the governance structures or replace individual organisations statutory duties – these remain firmly in place. We are also proud to remain the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership and our name won’t change.

A strength of our partnership is the way we work between NHS, local government and housing providers – this enables us to focus on the wider determinants of good health, and the interconnectivity between services locally. With this in mind, Jo Webster, CEO for Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group and Sarah Roxby Associate Director Housing and Health Transformation for Wakefield District Housing and Wakefield Clinical Commissioning Group gave an update on the work taking place in Wakefield. The Five Year Forward View and the Next Steps on the Five Year Forward View highlights the important role of housing in improving health and wellbeing. It is acknowledged that addressing wider determinants of health can result in a positive impact on the demand for primary and acute services.

Housing is a key enabler in developing new models of care and improving quality. The right home environment is essential to health and wellbeing, good quality housing is critical to a healthy community. The Building Research Establishment (BRE) estimates that the cost to the NHS nationally of poor housing is £1.4bn.

The paper presented by Sarah was welcomed and there was a good discussion around how we build closer stronger links into the work at a local and West Yorkshire and Harrogate level. There is an opportunity to use this work as an exemplar for West Yorkshire and Harrogate. Jacqui Gedman will lead on bringing a group together to initial focus on our local place areas [Bradford District and Craven; Calderdale, Harrogate, Leeds, Kirklees and Wakefield].

Feedback from the Shadow Group, which met on Monday, was included throughout the meeting by Matt Walsh, CEO for Calderdale Clinical Commissioning Group.

What’s happening next week?

  • Rob Webster our CEO Partnership Lead will be speaking at the launch of the Health and Care Select Committee Report on Integrated Care on Monday.
  • Our six local place planners (Bradford District and Craven; Calderdale, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield) meet on Tuesday.
  • West Yorkshire and Harrogate programme leads meet on Thursday. This includes maternity, stroke, cancer, urgent and emergency care.