Our Partnership is made up of organisations working closely together to plan services and address the challenges facing health and care services across the area.
In this section you will find links to useful information and publications about our partnership.
We are committed to meaningful conversations with people, on the right issues at the right time. We believe this is an important part of the way we work.
Engagement gives people an opportunity to have their say on services. By gathering people's views, it helps us understand what matters to people.
In this section you will find all Freedom of Information (FOI) requests made to our Partnership. You can also ask a question of your own.
People with a learning disability have worse physical and mental health than people without a learning disability. On average, the life expectancy of women with a learning disability is 18 years shorter than for women in the general population, and the life expectancy of men with a learning disability is 14 years shorter than for men in the general population.
We want people with learning disabilities in West Yorkshire and Harrogate to receive the best possible care. We also want people with learning disabilities to feel supported to have their say as they are the experts when it comes to knowing what help, support and personalised care they need.
We are working with people with learning disabilities so they can become health and care champions for our Partnership, including for priority programmes such as cancer, mental health, maternity care and hospitals working together. These health and care champions will work with us and the wider community of people with learning disabilities to further develop our plans and put them into action. We will do this by involving them in future conversations about improvement and asking them about their experience of care for people with learning disabilities. This is an approach supported by councils and NHS organisations.
Working with an organisation called Bradford Talking Media (BTM), we have set up a team of health and care champions with learning disabilities from communities across West Yorkshire and Harrogate. Their involvement is helping us to become better informed about their experiences of using health and care services so we can improve the way we plan services. This commitment to involvement extends to the funding of a part-time project worker with learning disabilities, a position recently taken up by Kelly Hartley. Here's some more information about Kelly:
My name is Kelly Hartley, and I am 21 years old. My job role is a Learning Disability and Autism Health and Care Champions Development Coordinator. I started in February 2021 and I am here to help advocate for people with disabilities by teaming up with other people with disabilities to help change and adapt hospitals to their needs.
I work with my colleague Hara to find different ways to communicate with people with disabilities and help build and deliver training for people that work within hospital trusts. The part of the job that I enjoy most is research and sharing what I learned; by talking to people I can show understanding in different conditions and I also enjoy the responsibility.
The most recent projects I have been asked to do is to do presentations and interactive activities about Coronavirus, Vaccines and Diabetes.
I was most nervous about how to talk to people with disabilities to be able to show understanding and adapt to others needs. However I am doing my best and have even come up with ideas like a quiz on Diabetes which all the members enjoyed.
The way I work with Hara is to update and speak with her everyday to discuss feedback and future adaptation for future projects.
The Champions have produced a suite of materials that support our work across West Yorkshire and Harrogate, including items that are helping people with Learning Disabilities manage their health during the coronavirus outbreak. You can browse these assets here. We have recently published a report into the work of the Champions that you can read now.
We are looking for more people to join our team of Champions to work with us and support our programmes, if you would like more information or would like to get involved with this project please contact susan.crowe@btm.org.uk
