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.
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.
For the latest information about coronavirus (Covid-19) and how it affects carers, please visit the dedicated page on the Carers UK website at: carersuk.org/help-and-advice/health/looking-after-your-health/coronavirus-covid-19
Our Working carers and Covid-19 web-based resource has been developed to help unpaid carers who work, look after the person they care for, and themselves, during these unprecedented times. It covers: money worries; your rights as an employee; looking after your mental and physical health; healthy eating; looking after the person you care for; looking after children's mental and physical health; and trying to get back to 'normal'.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate carers resources are being shared nationally. This includes the working carers passport via NHS England and NHS Improvement and e-learning Resources developed specifically for carers developed by Health Education England.
There are an estimated 260,000 unpaid carers living in West Yorkshire and Harrogate, including children and young people caring for parents with long-term health conditions.
Many carers are ‘hidden’ and provide the majority of care without formal support. Being a carer can be stressful and have a major impact on your health, relationships, education and employment. With this in mind we are working with NHS England to ensure that identifying carers and supporting them is further embedded within our work. This includes developing ways to support the existing and future workforce who balance caring responsibilities, signposting and identifying service standards for all organisations – not just in the public sector.
Read more about our approach to improve the support for unpaid carers in West Yorkshire and Harrogate in our strategy document, 'Caring for Carers'.
Looking back at the work we've been doing to improve support for unpaid carers in West Yorkshire and Harrogate in 2019. Watch or download the presentation.
The Unpaid Carers Programme celebrated Carers Rights Day on the 21st November 2019 and encouraged leaders across Wakefield, Leeds, Kirklees, Harrogate, Bradford and Calderdale to make a pledge for what change they're going to be implementing across their Trust and/or organisation.
By creating short videos published to Twitter using the hashtag #WYHCarersPledge and uploaded to youtube we had a total reach of 43,890 people with one video receiving 12,887 views alone.
Following on from the success of the Carers Rights Day 2019 Campaign, the Unpaid Carers Programme were eager to bring back the #WYHCarersPledge, but this time on a larger scale. One of the main barriers identified for young carers is that they simply do not self-identify as being a carer. In support of the Carers Trust #CountMeIn campaign running, West Yorkshire and Harrogate took a different approach by using the power of social media to define young carers and talk about the incredible work they're doing.
The Integrated Care Partnership (@wyhpartnership) released a series of video's throughout the day from leadership figures across the ICS, celebrities and local influencers. Our incredible Voluntary Community Sectors also pushed to get young carers voices heard by hosting several events, but by also getting young carers speaking on several local radio stations across West Yorkshire and Harrogate.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership want to develop a mechanism that engages young people with the health and care sector to inspire them to pursue a career in the sector. And to help raise the aspirations of young carers by helping them to idenitfy and recognise their own skills and showcasing work opportunities and the diversity of roles available to them.
The Partnership commissioned Ahead Partnership to help them support one of the workforce recommendations set out in their strategy to 'increase the number of people training to work in health and social care role across West Yorkhsire and Harrogate'.
An engagement event took place on Tuesday 25 June 2019 at 3M Buckley Innovation Centre in Huddersfield. 31 young people attended the event which provided an opportunity for young carers from across Kirklees and Calderdale to come together.
You can read the report of findings here.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership held an event on Thursday 4 April with over 100 delegates, including carers and carer organisation representatives to discuss how the NHS Long Term Plan can support better outcomes for unpaid carers across the area.
The event brought together a range of local people, carers and health and social care professionals to seek their views. This will help align the West Yorkshire and Harrogate carers’ strategy with the Long Term Plan.
You can view the presentations from the Long Term Plan event here.
Report of findings from our Long Term Plan unpaid carers engagement event held in April 2019
You Said We Did
West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Parternship (WY&H HCP) shared their vision and aspirations for unpaid carers, including young carers living across the area at an event in Leeds.
Over 60 health and care professonals working in primary care including GP practices, social care and the community sector attended the event to find out how they can contribute to the WY&H HCP vision for unpaid carers. The event, supported by NHS England, focused on improving the quality of life and well-being of the 260,000 carers living across the area.
Working in parternership with Carers Trust, Carers UK, The Childrens Society, and the Care Quality Commission (CQC), NHS England have developed voluntary quality markers for GP practices, based on what cares have said matters most to them. The CQC have also endorsed the quality markers as a model of good practice and will be looking how these markers from part of future assessments.
Event speakers included David Ross, NHS England Patient Experience, Dr Gordon Sinclair, Clinical Lead of Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group and Fatima Khan Shah, West Yorkshire and Harrogate Carer Programme Lead.
You can find the presentations here and read the report of findings here.
You can read an update on the work of West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership programme for unpaid carers here.
West Yorkshire and Harrogate, Health and Care Partnership shared their vision and aspirations for the 260,000 unpaid carers, including young carers, living across the area at a special event in Wakefield on Thursday 14 December 2017. Over 60 representatives from voluntary and community organisations including, Carers Count, Carers Wakefield and District, Carers Leeds and Carers Resource attended the event supported by health services, local councils and Carers UK to find out how they can contribute to the WY&H vision for unpaid carers and share good practice. Guest speakers on the day included Rob Webster, Emily Holzhausen OBE from Carers UK, Fatima Khan-Shah, Partnership Lead for Carers and Neil Churchill from NHS England. Read more here. You can also view the event presentations here presentations here and view the event findings report on our 'Get involved / engagement section'. To support this work we also wanted to gain an understanding of the organisations across West Yorkshire and Harrogate that provide support for unpaid carers. A mapping exercise was undertaken and this report provides a summary of that exercise.
For many carers, the biggest priority is the health and wellbeing of those they care for and as such they are more likely to neglect their own health and are known to put off treatment for themselves. – with this in mind we are working closely with primary care professionals, including GPs and practice nurses to give carers the support they need.
We are committed to improving the health and wellbeing of 260,000 carers living in Bradford District and Craven; Calderdale, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield.
You can read more here.
