What are we doing?
The Leeds Health and Care Partnership looks at the people who live in Leeds (our population), as defined groups of people who have similar health and care needs. We call these groups, ‘segments’. Each of these population segments has a group of senior staff – including doctors, charities, and the local council – who are responsible for improving the population segment’s health and wellbeing. These groups are called ‘population boards’.
Over the last year, the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) in Leeds has started to develop an insight-led approach to support our boards. An insight-led approach means that we are using information about people’s health and care experiences to plan and deliver better local health and care services. This approach brings together our understanding of people’s experiences for each population by reviewing existing insight (public feedback) from across the Leeds health and care system. This information is presented in an ‘insight report’ and these reports are used alongside other information about local people and wider involvement activities that support the boards to listen, act, and feedback. It will be one of the tools our boards use to improve local health and care services.
Why are we doing it?
People have told us that they want us to stop asking the same questions and spend more of our time using the information we have to improve people’s experience. In response to this, we have committed to starting with what we already know about people’s experiences, needs, and preferences. This new approach means reviewing what information we already have and bringing together this information about people’s experiences in one place (our insight reports). Working in this way we have a much better understanding of themes, or common experiences, that people have when they use health and care services in Leeds.
Who are we working with?
The ICB in Leeds has worked closely with partners across the Leeds health and care system, including; Healthwatch Leeds, charities, public volunteers, and NHS services. Working in this way has been essential so that we can understand experiences from a wide range of different services and communities. As part of this work, we are also working with the public. We are holding public involvement workshops for each board which gives local people an opportunity to review and comment on our insight reports.
What difference will it make?
Bringing together the experiences of our different populations is making a big difference in the way we plan, develop, and deliver our services.
- We have a much better understanding of people’s needs and experiences across a range of services and communities.
- We don’t need to keep going out asking the same questions.
- We have a better understanding of the gaps in our knowledge.
- We can focus our involvement on communities that experience the greatest health inequalities.
- We can spend more time focussing on using feedback to shape our services.
While this is a new and developing approach, we are already seeing how intelligence about people’s experiences has informed decision-making, governance, and quality-checking. The End-of-life Population Board and Healthwatch Leeds have used the insight report to plan the 2023 Leeds Bereavement Survey. The report showed a gap in our understanding of the end-of-life experiences of diverse ethnic communities, people from areas of deprivation, men, and people under 65. Understanding these gaps has allowed the board and Healthwatch to focus their involvement on these specific communities.
How will it improve the health of the poorest, the fastest?
The Leeds Health and Care Partnership is committed to improving the health of the poorest, the fastest. One of the barriers to our work is a lack of quality data (information) about people and communities who experience the greatest health inequalities. Services in Leeds are working hard to better understand the needs of these communities and our insight reports are one of the ways we are doing this. Understanding these needs will help us to plan and deliver services that improve the health of the poorest, the fastest.
How to find out more
You can find out more about our population work in Leeds and read all our insight reports by visiting the populations page of this website here: https://www.healthandcareleeds.org/have-your-say/shape-the-future/populations/