The Kirklees Health and Care plan sets out our priorities. There are four for the immediate future.
Improving access
- People are waiting too long for diagnosis and treatment.
- Demand for health and care is increasing, putting pressure on services and waiting times.
- We must make sure people can access the right service for their needs in a timely way.
- Care should be personalised and responsive to individual needs.
- Health prevention, awareness raising and encouraging people to make healthy choices is important.
Holistic approach to out of hospital care
- People can often receive better care in their community.
- Those admitted to hospital may stay longer than they need to, increasing pressure on hospitals and impacting on patient recovery.
- We want to reimagine out of hospital care so people can leave hospital more rapidly or avoid admission in the first place.
- We need to provide more home-based / neighbourhood support and better access to rehabilitation.
- A strong community and voluntary sector is important.
Crisis response
- People are attending emergency departments who could be supported better elsewhere.
- This puts unnecessary pressure on hospitals and the ambulance service and increases waiting times for patients.
- We need to shift our focus to prevention and proactive care – reducing the need for crisis response.
- If crisis care is necessary, people receive the right level of support for their needs, first time, in the right place.
Workforce
- Health and care workforce is increasing but not keeping pace with demand.
- Retention of staff is a problem, and large proportion of staff nearing retirement age.
- There are different pay and conditions in health and care sectors.
- We must attract people to work in health and care, ensure staff have the right training and development opportunities, and look at new ways of working.
- We have to get better at working together to manage this skilled resource.
- We need to improve the diversity of our workforce.