Our system is made of the people in it. Our people in the West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership are spread across many different organisations in the health and care sector, including the voluntary community and social enterprise (VCSE) and through the estimated 400,000 unpaid carers (many don’t access formal support) all contributing to our workforce.
We are pleased to be able to publish our latest West Yorkshire People Plan. This plan has been co-produced with our system partners across all sectors and with representatives of the workforce.
It builds on progress made since we published our last people plan in 2018 ‘A healthy place to live, a great place to work’, which set out how we will support our staff, carers and volunteers to manage unprecedented times and move towards a better future. You can see the progress made on the 'Our context' page here.
The priorities set out in this latest plan have been informed through our response to COVID-19. It outlines how we will support the workforce as we progress with the post pandemic recovery, embedding all the transformational work that has helped us through this period, as well as setting out the longer-term ambitions for our people and how we deliver care in the future.
There is no doubting the sustained efforts of our workforce, informal carers, and volunteers in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our top priority is to ensure we look after, value and develop these teams and colleagues, whilst we continue to grow the workforce of the future. This means ensuring we have enough staff, good wellbeing support and specific training and supervision. It also means ensuring we have a diverse workforce reflective of the communities we serve.
We face challenges in recruiting and retaining a skilled workforce across all sectors – notably in social care as well as the NHS. We are already working differently to ensure we respond to new technology, new demand and the skills needed for the future, working with university partners, colleges and councils. This could be an exciting prospect as we marry opportunities in over 300 roles to communities in West Yorkshire that suffer from issues of long-term unemployment or transient work.
We seek to ensure career opportunities in the health and care sector are used to support social and economic development in our communities, supporting the tackling of health inequalities and the West Yorkshire recovery plan.
Our aim sits firmly in line with the national vision – we want more staff, working differently in a compassionate culture. This plan sets the framework by which we will make this a reality.
Rob Webster, CEO-Designate for West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership.
Brendan Brown, CEO for Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust and CEO Workforce Lead for West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership.
