The Yorkshire and the Humber Social Partnership for Improved Health Summit 2010 was held on 26th May 2010 in Bradford.
The focus of this year’s Summit was to celebrate the achievements made by the region’s NHS organisations, through utilisation of effective partnership working to take forward the four priority work areas agreed by delegates at the 2009
Summit:
- Building Trade Union Capacity
- Equality and Diversity
- Promoting Healthy Workplaces
- Engaging staff and patients with the NHS Constitution
In turn, the Summit aimed to recognise and share with delegates regional examples of good practice, highlighting the achievements of those organisations who did not win, but who did display excellent examples which we are keen to promote. It also provided an opportunity for interactive discussion with the work theme project leaders. Examples of good practice from around the region included:
- Healthy workplace - Doncaster NHS
- Pacesetters programme - Doncaster NHS
- Social inclusion and diversity forum - Leeds Partnerships NHS Trust
- Sector employability toolkit - Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust
- Effective trade union partnership working - Scarborough & North East Yorkshire Healthcare NHS Trust
- NHS Consitution - Examples from the region
Summary of the Summit
Keynote speaker:
Bill McCarthy (Chief Executive, NHS Yorkshire and the Humber)
The 2010 Summit hosted keynote speaker Bill McCarthy to provide an overview of the new architecture of the health service and the need for a strong commitment on outcomes for communities, patients, vulnerable people and social care for older people. Bill stated that to achieve the financial goals to reduce NHS costs by £1.3billion over the next 3 years, NHS organisations need to utilise strong relationships with trade unions and ensure openness and honesty in approach.
The 3 constants which need to be held onto as a region include:
- Ambition as a region – strong health communities and health services, reduced health inequalities and well motivated staff across the region
- Values – the NHS Constitution reflects the regional values of holding ourselves to account for ensuring; openness and honesty; acting fair and consistent and; valuing innovation and creativity
- Partnership working – bringing about improvements through partnership and in partnership with clinical, managerial and staff side leaders.
It was noted that partnership working can be sustained during difficult times but there has to be a strong commitment across the region, as has been demonstrated by the examples of regional achievements presented at the 2010 Summit.
Guest Speaker:
Mike Jackson (Senior National Officer for Health, UNISON)
Mike Jackson provided an overview of the common themes associated with a recent review of strong and weak performing regional partnership forums. It was noted that Yorkshire and the Humber is one of the strongest examples of an effectively performing Forum.
It was also noted that the National Partnership Forum priorities for the forthcoming year include:
- QIPP and the financial challenge
- Skilling the workforce
- Implementation of the Human Resources Framework
Health, Work and Wellbeing to reduce sickness absence
- Transforming Community Services and system reform
- Embed and promote partnership working within the NHS
- Continue to embed the NHS Constitution
- Recognition of effective partnership working
A number of applications of partnership working good practice were received from Primary Care, Acute and Mental Health organisations and were judged by four expert judging panels for each work area. The expert judging panels included representatives from NHS Employers, Department of Health, the National Social Partnership Forum as well as staff side and management representatives from the Regional Social Partnership Forum.
Each application was evaluated based on evidence of ‘real’ partnership working' (not just consultation); use of innovative approach; involvement and demonstrable benefits to service users and staff; cost effectiveness and; transferability to other NHS organisations.
Case studies describing each of the successful schemes, together with supporting information is provided in the brochure produced for the awards. Posters developed by various organisations can also be viewed/downloaded (see Related Documents). A 'Summary and Communication Bulletin' is available to download which includes all of the above information together with delegates' learning from the summit.
Award Categories and Winners
There are 4 award categories which reflect the Social Partnership Forums objectives:
Overall Winner: NHS Constitution
'Navigate', NHS Bradford & Airedale
Overview: Identifying the behaviours that the organisation values as being effective for working relationships, reflecting and bringing to life the NHS Constitution, the NHS Values and the organisation's vision and mission.
For more information contact: Fiona Sherburn (Director of Human Resources) at fiona.sherburn@bradford.nhs.uk
Equality and Diversity
Winner: 'Every Body Matters', NHS Bradford & Airedale
Overview: To offer disable people who wanted to work with the Trust the chance to develop their skills and to then evaluate whether this helped them to gain employment.
For more information contact: Lynne Carter (Head of Equality & Diversity) at lynne.carter@bradford.nhs.uk
Healthy Workplaces
Winner: 'Managing Sickness and Maximising Attendance', York Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Overview: To reduce the Trust’s sickness rate, reduce the referral time to Occupational Health and ensure more appropriate allocation of resources to deliver patient services.
For more information contact: Dawn Preece (Senior Human Resources Manager) at Dawn.preece@york.nhs.uk
Building Trade Union Capacity
Winner: 'Increasing staff side representation', Humber NHS Foundation Trust
Overview: A joint approach in undertaking a sustained recruitment campaign to advertise, promote and support trade union membership in an organisation which had no local staff side representatives.
For more information contact: Kate Truscott (Director of Human Resources & Diversity) at Kate.truscott@humber.nhs.uk