Rob talks about the role of unpaid carers and the work we are doing at a local and West Yorkshire and Harrogate level to support people across our area.

What else has been happening this week?

Urgent and Emergency Care Board

The Urgent and Emergency Care Programme Board met on Monday. Ruth Buchan, Chief Executive Officer for Community Pharmacy West Yorkshire talked about the role of community pharmacy in urgent care. Pharmacies are open at times which suit patients and consumers – many late into the evenings or at weekend. We need to ensure that community pharmacy is included in all five A&E Delivery Board plans as it is estimated that up to 8% of people that attended A&E could have been successfully treated within a pharmacy setting.

Check and confirm sessions

We held the final check and confirm sessions this week, this included workforce, business intelligence and primary and community care. The process has been a good one and some key themes across all programmes have been identified such as capacity, innovation and the power of working as a partnership.

Cancer Alliance Board

Our Cancer Alliance has taken an important step forward towards its ambition to wrap cancer care and services around patients with a decision to work with Healthwatch across the region – led by Nicola Esmond and colleagues at Healthwatch Wakefield – on setting up a community/patient panel. Recruitment is currently underway for the Panel Co-ordinator post. Read more here.

Health Committee comes to South Yorkshire

South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw Integrated Care Services welcomed the Health Committee to South Yorkshire on Tuesday to meet with health care leaders, including Sir Andrew Cash, Amanda Doyle, and Rob Webster, CEO lead for our partnership and Sean Duffy, Clinical Lead for the Cancer Alliance.

The Health Select Committee is made up a number of MPs including Sarah Wollaston MP; Andrew Selous MP; Paul Williams MP; Diana Johnson MP; and Ben Bradshaw MP. The Committee was also joined by Professor Chris Ham and Anna Charles from The Kings Fund as well as Matthew Swindells, NHS England National Director for Operations and Information.

It was a really important session. We discussed the importance of collaboration locally and the role that integrated care systems could play in supporting this.

Elective Care and Standardisation of Policies

Interviews took place over the past two weeks for recruitment to a project manager and programme director post. We’re pleased to announce that Gaynor Goodman has been appointed to the role of project manager and Catherine Thompson, the programme director post.

What’s happening next week?

  • The Public Health Coordination Group meets on Tuesday.
  • A Hospital Trust Governors’ Workshop will take place next Friday. This will give Trust Governors the opportunity to find out more about our partnership. Guest speakers include Rob Webster our CEO lead and Julian Hartley, the CEO lead for hospitals working together.
  • Our finance directors meet on Friday.