What is the Wakefield District Health and Care Partnership?

We are the NHS, the council, health, care and housing organisations and the voluntary sector working together across the Wakefield district and West Yorkshire.

We work to make sure that the right health and care services are in place for our residents and we also work to improve health and care services in the long term.

We play a key role in delivering the Wakefield Health and Wellbeing Strategy, including working to prevent ill health and reduce health inequalities.

There have been different ways that health and care has been organised over the years but our aims and priorities remain the same – we will continue to secure and improve health and care services for our residents and work to reduce health inequalities.

We want people to start well, live well and age well.

The health of people in Wakefield district

• we are living longer with more illness than ever before
• people living in the most well-off areas of the district on average live eight years longer than those living in the poorest areas
• cancer and cardiovascular disease are increasing in people aged over 75
• less than half of new-born babies are breast fed
• childhood obesity is rising faster than elsewhere in the country in all age groups
• more than half of children are growing up in low-income households
• one in five adults are smokers
• one in every hundred hospital admissions is related to substance misuse
• one in three people live with a mental illness
• air pollution kills over 150 people every year

You can find out more information about the health and wellbeing needs of our local population in the Wakefield Joint Needs Assessment (JSNA).

What have people told us about their experiences of health and care services?

Local people have told us that they have concerns about:

• getting an appointment with a GP
• being able to register with an NHS dentist
• mental health support for adults and children
• waiting lists and delays for treatment or care
• being excluded by online or digital services
• experiencing care that is not joined up or coordinated

You can read more about what people have told us is important to them in our engagement and consultation reports.

Where do we want to be?

We have three core aims to help local people live healthier, happier lives:

• We want to provide health and care services that are personalised, accessible and timely
• We want more health and care services to be provided at home or close to home
• We want people in Wakefield district live in communities where they are supported to stay well

What we are working on right now

This year (2023-2024) we are working on a number of priorities that we believe will help us begin to address the things that local people have told us matter most to them:

Waiting lists and making sure you can access the service you need:

• We will put the right support in place for children who are neuro-diverse. This support will not rely on a diagnosis
• We will deliver an integrated emotional and mental wellbeing pathway for children and young people
• We will work towards making it easier to get a course of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for those who would benefit from it
• We will continue to work hard to reduce the length of time people have to wait for treatment in A&E
• We will get rid of the long waits that people are currently experiencing for planned treatment
• We will recruit more GPs to work in Wakefield district
• We will increase the number of appointments available in GP practices
• We will increase opportunities for career progression and skills development within social care staff groups
• We will work across West Yorkshire to improve access to dentists and dental services
• We will pilot a ‘digital health hub’ for people to access online services and increase their digital skills. We will also loan digital equipment to the most vulnerable.

Improving experience

• We will improve people’s experience of being discharged from hospital by making sure this works better and faster. This will involve different parts of the health and care system working together more effectively
• We will provide more urgent services in your own home, reducing the need for people to attend A&E
• We will increase the number of people who die in their preferred place – for most people this is not hospital

 Preventing ill health and supporting independence

• We will support the most vulnerable in our population by making sure that voluntary and community organisations can focus on local needs
• We will support more people raising families through community Family Hubs
• We will support more people to quit smoking whilst pregnant
• We will increase the number of people with serious mental illness and learning disabilities who receive their NHS Healthcheck
• We will help people to recognise the risks of cardiovascular disease (conditions affecting the heart and blood vessels) and support them to reduce those risks
• We will use assistive technology to help people to live independently
• We will provide extra care housing schemes to support people to live independently
• We will increase the number of people living with a long-term health condition who have a personalised care and support plan

What we are working on in the longer term:

As well as as improving health and care services for people right now, an important part of our role is to create the health and care system that we will need in the future – one that can meet the needs of our growing population.

To work towards this we are making these long term commitments:

• We will do more to prevent ill health. This will include supporting people to start well and live well through building healthy and thriving communities and promoting independence and healthier lifestyles. Through new ways of working with data in the future we will also be able to better identify people who could be at risk of ill health and work with them to anticipate and prevent this.

• Health inequalities are unfair differences in the health between different groups of people. We will work together as a partnership to make sure that the right focus and resources are in place for those most at risk, and support the wider local health and wellbeing aims to tackle underlying poverty and disadvantage.

• We will continue to make sure that health and care is joined up and well-coordinated. This will mean that people are much more able to maintain their independence and will have a much better experience of services. It will also mean that the whole system will be more efficient.

• We know that very often the best way to support you when you need health and care services is to do this in your own home, close to home or within your local community. The evidence shows that this can help people regain their independence and recover quicker. We are committed to providing more care within your home or in local community or health centres.

• We will continue to work in partnership with a range of health and care organisations in the Wakefield district and across West Yorkshire. This means that we can really make a difference, with individual organisations playing their part, towards our shared aims to improve population health.

If you would like a copy of the Partnership’s Strategic Delivery Plan 2023-2026,  please get in touch with us at:
wyicb-wak.communications@nhs.net

The Wakefield District Health and Wellbeing Strategy 2022-2025 aims to help people across the district to live longer, healthier, happier lives.

The plan describes how organisations will work together with local communities to improve the health of the population overall, as well as closing the gap between the health of people in the most well-off areas of the district and people who live in poorer areas.

The strategy identifies four key overarching priority areas:

• A healthy standard of living for all
• A healthy start in life for every child
• Preventing ill-health
• Sustainable communities

The priorities are based on what local people have told us is important to them about what helps them stay well, as well as the detailed information about the district’s population from the Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA).

Under the plan, local people will have more choice, control and support to live independently with less reliance on services. Where people do need support from services, health and care will be more joined up and organised around the needs and preferences of the individual, their carers and family.

Our areas of focus for the next three years include supporting schemes that provide good quality, warm and affordable housing and address fuel poverty; helping more women to stop smoking when they are pregnant and improving access to mental health support for new mothers; enhanced support to the thousands of informal carers in the district, including children and young people, to enable them to continue the vital role they play in looking after family members and friends with disabilities or health conditions; and the creation of safer, more attractive and healthier places to live and improve green space in our city and town centres.

The Health and Wellbeing Board will oversee the development of detailed plans to take forward the priorities.

Progress so far

In 2023 we published an update on the the steps that have been taken in the first year of the Health and Wellbeing Strategy.

These include:

• 25 ‘warm spaces’ set up across the district for people struggling with spiralling fuel costs
• More than 100 households benefited from an average of £3,251 each during a second ‘More Money in My Pocket’ benefits campaign led by Citizens Advice (CAB)
• A new framework to support homeless people and rough sleepers to have better access to health care
• Over 30,000 books have been delivered to over 1,500 eligible children through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library scheme
• The Healthy Hearts programme is identifying people at greatest risk of heart disease and helping them to take action through lifestyle choices, professional support and medication to reduce their risk
• A new Connect to Support website is offering information about a range of support and self-help services for carers and for people living with long term conditions

Read more about how our health and wellbeing plans are gathering pace.

Wakefield District Health and Care Partnership: our first year review

Our one year plan was developed following the new legislation for the NHS which was implemented in July 2022.

To achieve our aims, we outlined the programmes that our partnership would take forward during this year.

The purpose of this plan was to set out our vision for 2022-2023, and the priority programmes of work we chose to address collectively.

Read our 2022-2023 Partnership Plan (opens in PowerPoint)

Our 2022-23 Partnership Plan plain text version (opens in Word)

Our Adult Autism Strategy for the Wakefield district, which describes how we will deliver the vision for autistic people.

Wakefield District Health and Care Partnership works to improve the health and wellbeing of local people, by reducing health inequalities, providing continuity of care and improving our services. Our priorities, overseen by the Health and Wellbeing Board, are based on what we know makes the biggest difference to improving people’s health:

• Giving every child the best start in life
• A healthy standard of living for all
• Sustainable communities
• Preventing ill health

The Adult Autism Strategy encompasses these key priorities and embraces a partnership working approach to removing historical barriers that have prevented joined-up patient care across primary, community, mental health, social care and acute services. We are committed to applying these integrated care principles to the delivery of autism services for adults in Wakefield following a recent engagement highlighting that this is important to everyone.

Wakefield District Health and Care Partnership Adult Autism Strategy 2023-2025

Find out more about the work of the Wakefield Learning Disability and Autism Partnership Board

This webpage includes the Adult Learning Disability Plan for Wakefield 2022-2024.

Mental Health Alliance

The Wakefield Mental Health Alliance Partnership is a partnership of Mental Health providers and commissioners in the District of Wakefield. The Alliance was formed in June 2018.