Proposal to establish new York Health and Care Alliance
City of York Council’s Executive will consider plans to further improve health and social care services across the city at a meeting on Thursday 18 March.
Building on the successes of York’s vaccination rollout, city-wide testing and support for people who are shielding, the proposals to establish a Health and Social Care Alliance for York have been led by a number of health and social care partners in the city, including the council, NHS commissioners and providers, and voluntary sector organisations.
The aim of the Alliance will be to strengthen health, care and public services in the city by building healthcare locally around residents, rather than around organisations. By doing so, the council and its partners can better tackle health inequalities which existed before COVID, but have been magnified by it, and improve the general health and wellbeing of the York population.
The proposals will also work to lock-in some of the positive work seen throughout the pandemic, which has been achieved by partners working in a more collaborative and effective manner due to the challenges of the pandemic. This work includes:
- supporting people with COVID-19 and spotting signs of deterioration through the COVID Hub Single Point of Access
- delivering city wide testing, tracing and outbreak management (for example with universities and colleges, or with care homes)
- supporting people access primary care, therapy and specialist nursing whilst shielding
- delivering an exemplary COVID vaccination effort with many partners contributing to a swift and very successful rollout of the vaccine so far.
The proposals have been developed in response to the recent publication of the Government’s ‘Integration and Innovation’ White Paper, which sets out a series of reforms to health and care which the Government intend to implement at the beginning of April 2022.
This paper, published in February, also sets out how Integrated Care Systems (ICS) are expected to become embedded in legislation by April 2022 and therefore have statutory responsibilities, as part of reforms to the Health and Social Care Act. This Integrated Care System covers an area which includes York, as well as North Yorkshire, Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire.
If approved, the proposals would see the York Health and Social Care Alliance run in shadow form during the 2021-22 financial year, in order to further develop governance and accountability structures. Once all partners have agreed to the yet-to-be-proposed terms of reference, the board will be formalised in 2022, when the new national legislation takes effect.
The Alliance membership will comprise different organisations involved in commissioning or delivering health and care in York:
- Vale of York CCG
- City of York Council
- York Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
- Tees Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Trust
- Nimbuscare (Primary care services provider in York)
- Community and Voluntary Services
- St Leonard’s Hospice
- York Schools and Academies Board
- Representatives of Primary Care networks.