Synopsis:
The carers program within the partnership is a collaboration involving the local authority, the NHS, the voluntary sector, carers and other partners led by a carer. Our partnership serves 2.6 million people.
There are 260,000 carers in West Yorkshire and Harrogate.
The number of carers is increasing. This combined with changes in retirement age means the demographics of unpaid carers across the country is altering. Significant numbers of carers struggle to cope with managing their caring responsibilities alongside work and other commitments. There is substantial evidence that people who are carers can have poorer health than those who are not.
We aspire to be a place where carers are identified, recognised and supported. They are recognised across our programmes. We want to ensure that carers no matter where they live can expect the same support. We have continued to build on previous work to understand provision and challenges across the six places within the partnership these include Bradford, Calderdale, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield. We have solid foundations at regional and local networks involving leaders and champions at all levels owning and implementing the work of the programme. This has enabled us to demonstrate change at regional and local levels.
Ambitions:
Our partnership consists of nine clinical commissioning groups, seven local authorities, hospital trusts, community providers, and 333 GP practices. The third-largest ICS in the country our system presents challenges due to the complexity required to support effective implementation. There is an inequity of approach and potentially a postcode lottery for our carers.
Our work continuously includes engagement with carers and the voluntary sector to understand what’s important to them. This combined with evidence of the economic impact of supporting carers effectively underpins our case for change and our rationale for building and spreading good practice and improving outcomes. This is delicately balanced with working partners to encourage them to support and own our vision as well as working towards our objectives. This is an ever-evolving balance.
We are in the process of evolving our governance to reflect this to capture the voices of all our stakeholders including carers in our programme board. The programme has shared objectives with other programmes in the ICS and has ensured the leaders of all our local areas have signed up to them. We therefore all support the same vision, are working towards the same things and can also be held to account.
Outcomes:
Our program has made significant progress engaging with previously unengaged partners to recognise the case for change for supporting our carers. It was crucial that work is underpinned by a clear plan of work with clear measurable goals to demonstrate progress to everyone but most importantly our carers.
The next step was to gain commitment by securing champions at the board and grassroots level to own this agenda and support the programme across the Partnership. All local places have Employers for Carers membership to support working carers within those organisations. Our commissioning contracts ensure providers recognise and support carers in their delivery plans. Carers are recognised within our ICS within Equality, Quality, Impact Assessments to ensure that they are considered within any changes to commissioned services.
All 6 areas have processes in place to identify and signpost carers to local support in primary care developed by securing clinical support and leadership. An example of this is in Wakefield where Carers Wakefield has worked with PCN’s to trial ‘quality markers’ to support better carer identification and support. This approach is being replicated across the partnership. Carer champions in GP practices and hospitals have increased awareness and ensured carers receive effective support.
Spread:
By engaging with the different stakeholders across the partnership, including the local workforce action board, our clinical forum, the urgent and emergency care program, primary care program, the mental health program, the workforce program, the cancer program and community pharmacies we have put the carers agenda front and centre of the partnership.
Our approach to coproduce with carers and develop champions for the delivery of the strategy has resulted in a network of activity across the partnership to embed the carers agenda in existing programs and put it at the forefront.
An example of this is the development of the working carers passport, which has been taken to the committee of the HR director’s acute trusts within the partnership utilising ICS governance for effective decisions being made one. This project will reach in excess of 43,000 employees and will result in a consistent approach for working carers across West Yorkshire and Harrogate supporting them to remain in work and progress.
We have created a central source of information on our website for both carers and organisations supporting carers to access information about our work and progress. We also have a virtual platform on Kahootz for them to virtually share good practice.
Value:
A value within the partnership is that we aim to do the work once. This will eliminate duplication of systems, processes and potential sources of conflict. This model delivers an improved way of connecting up support for carers. This is what carers have told us they need, they have also said they want the good practice to be shared and implemented consistently across West Yorkshire and Harrogate and for solutions to developed together our strategy reflects this.
Our Objectives range across the health and social care system recognising the holistic approach required to support carers. This has enabled us to embed the carers agenda in the governance of the partnership with the full support of the leadership. Carers UK suggests that one carer saves the economy £19,000 a year. By supporting carers and enabling them to continue we estimate we can potentially save the partnership for £4.3 billion.
By supporting working carers with the working carers passport we hope to retain the 4777 of the 43,000 affected by carers passport, enabling them to remain in work and support their career progression. Please refer to the supporting material for examples of qualitative impact and patient experience.
Involvement:
Our partnership belongs to our commissioners, providers, local government, the NHS and our communities. Throughout this process we have shared analysis, good practice and co-produced solutions with stakeholders within the partnership and most importantly with carers. It is important that everyone involved feels part of this program and this is reflected in its success.
We have held a number of events engaging with carers and the organisations that support them. We recognised that carers felt tired of engagement and wanted action with tangible outcomes. This is reflected within the strategy which underpins our program. The success of this program relies on the support of its champions. This was cultivated by proactively engaging with forums across West Yorkshire and Harrogate articulating a clear vision for carers supported an evidence-based narrative about the case for change and the benefits to the system.
This has resulted in a great number of champions within the partnership many of them within the partnership, based within the local authority, acute trusts, community providers, the independent sector primary care and others. This grassroots support resulted in the carers workstream becoming an enabling programme of its own and the successes it’s achieved so far.
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