Posted on: 6 January 2023
Hello, my name is Cathy.
As we enter the New Year, I wanted to take the opportunity to wish you all a very happy, safe and healthy 2023.
Thank you so much to everyone who has worked so hard over the festive period to keep people safe and well. I hope you managed to have some down time to recharge your batteries and spend time with family and friends.
I am sure you will agree that this year will bring many opportunities as well as challenges for all!
Winter 2022/23 will be one we will remember for a long time for various reasons. This makes the work of our Partnership, where we work together for 2.4 million people living across West Yorkshire, as important as ever.
In 2023 we will continue to drive forward our collective work to tackle inequalities for people and communities, as well as looking at how we can improve access to health services for all and supporting people through the cost-of-living crisis. You can read our statement and action plan in responding to the cost-of-living crisis produced with the West Yorkshire Mayor and West Yorkshire Combined Authority on our website. This sets out our collective commitment for the short and long term. The strength of our Partnership, our leaders, colleagues, and communities will ensure that together we will do all that we can.
As a nationally award-winning integrated care system we are building on the firm foundations of West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership, now entering its seventh year. Our collaborative work is held up as national best practice and has been positively described by those outside of West Yorkshire as the ‘blueprint’ for system working. As Chair of the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB), I am looking forward to working with colleagues this year to help improve people’s wellbeing, doing everything we can to meet the needs of our colleagues and communities. This includes our role as an employer.
Our Integrated Care Board meets in public on Tuesday, 17 January, in Leeds for the fourth time. At this meeting we will continue our focus on supporting our health and care workforce alongside partners and across our services in West Yorkshire, linked to our People Plan. We will also be discussing the delivery of our winter resilience plans. We welcome questions from the public in relation to the meeting’s agenda by the morning of 16 January. You can read the meeting documents on our website from the 10 January and also watch the meeting live on the day. The Board meeting in public will be complemented by an informal Board engagement session earlier in the day which we have piloted since last September. This will once again give us the opportunity to listen to the experiences of local people to inform our decision-making.
Over the coming weeks we will be asking people and communities to come forward and share their views on how health services should be delivered to them locally and across West Yorkshire. This links with our developing work with Healthwatch to establish a people panel (working title for now) across West Yorkshire and the refresh of our Partnership’s Integrated Care Strategy.
With the passing of the Health and Care Act 2022, there is a requirement for integrated care systems (like the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership) to develop a five-year integrated health and social care strategy and for integrated care boards across England to develop a joint forward plan to deliver the NHS components. Building on the Partnership’s five-year strategy ‘better health and wellbeing for everyone’ published in 2020, the Partnership has developed a refreshed draft strategy. We will be especially seeking people’s views over the coming weeks on how its ambitions for the NHS will be achieved in a new Joint Forward Plan for the area. We are expecting to publish the plan in June 2023.
Our refreshed five-year strategy in draft has been developed from what people, communities and staff think about health and social care services in Bradford District and Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield District. Co-produced in partnership with colleagues from across all health and care sectors, it has been developed from Healthwatch engagement, local involvement activities, views from meetings held in public via the local health and wellbeing boards, our Integrated Care Board and the Partnership Board.
Refreshing our strategy gives us the opportunity to build a plan that really achieves the NHS services our people and communities want and reflect the times in which we are operating, including current national policy and working together to alleviate poverty. It is important to us to work with people and communities to ensure their voices are heard whilst representing their current concerns. We are urging everyone to come forward and think about what it means for them, their family, loved ones and friends and to importantly have their say. Please look out for communications and have your say from the 10 January.
What I hope to see this year is the delivery of realistic health and care plans that are ambitious for all who work and live in West Yorkshire. On a personal level, I look forward to working with you all, and hopefully meeting more of you virtually and face-to-face so that I can say ‘hello’ and thank you for your work.
With all the very best for 2023,
Cathy
NHS West Yorkshire ICB Chair
Connect with me on Twitter @NHSWYChair