West Yorkshire and Harrogate Partnership

We want to improve the way that services are provided with a greater focus on helping people earlier rather than later and keeping people well.

Examples of this include:

Supporting people to stop smoking - nearly 20% of people smoke in West Yorkshire and Harrogate. This is higher than the national average
Reducing the number of people admitted to hospital due to alcohol consumption by 500 every year and reducing the number of ambulance call-outs for related incidents. In West Yorkshire and Harrogate alcohol consumption is a major concern - there are around 455,000 heavy drinkers across the area
People with long term health conditions spend most of their time looking after themselves. We want to support them to do this with a focus on preventing illness, so they can stay well
In West Yorkshire and Harrogate there are higher than average childhood obesity levels and 50% of people are overweight. We want to provide more people with support to help them to lead healthier lives
Over 200,000 people are at risk of diabetes in the area. Our aspiration is that 50% of these people are offered diabetes prevention support.

You can read this presentation to find out more about our plans for a preventative approach to health and social care for our local population.

Population health management

We are working with NHS England to develop a network to share good practice across our six local areas (Bradford District and Craven; Calderdale, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield) so that we can improve the health outcomes of groups of people in our areas and break down health inequalities. The health of a population is influenced by a wide range of factors and the interactions between them. They include the local environment – such as the conditions in which people live and work; social and economic factors – like education, income and employment; lifestyles – including what people eat and drink, whether they smoke, and how much physical activity they do; and access to health care and other public and private services. Age, sex and genes make a difference to health too, as well as social networks and the wider society in which people live. There is a lot of good work taking place acrss the area and we want to share and spread good practice in West Yorkshire and Harrogate. You can read a report from The Kings Fund on population health management ‘A vision for population health: Towards a healthier future’ here.