Praise for West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership colleagues as NHS steps down from level three response to Covid - Yorkshire Post Letters

To all West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership colleagues,

On May 18, the board of NHS England announced the NHS would be stepping down from its level three incident (regionally led) response to Covid-19. This came one year after the national level four incident was stepped down and follows The World Health Organisation’s recent announcement that Covid-19 is no longer a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

This is an important milestone and is good news for all of us. I wanted to make sure that we reflected on what we have achieved together; and what you have lived through and overcome.

Thank you to everyone who has worked in every organisation in our West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (WY HCP) over the last three years. Over 100,000 staff, the estimated 150,000 volunteers and 400,000 informal carers have contributed.

Thank you for all your incredible efforts to respond to the pandemic and for the work you do every day to support the 2.4 million people living across our area. Our partnership of the NHS, councils, social care, community care providers, hospices, the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector, Healthwatch and communities is a testimony to the best of public service. You have done so in the most challenging circumstances we have faced in our working lives, often at personal risk to your own wellbeing.

Many of you stepped outside your daily roles during the pandemic, demonstrating flexibility and willingness to deliver care best suited to people and communities by constantly breaking down hurdles and barriers.

This approach was evident when handling the multiple waves of the pandemic faced to date. Our partnership made a difference in many key areas, including the sourcing and distribution of personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff, the introduction and coordination of mass Covid-19 testing, supporting over 100,000 vulnerable people through shielding, and rolling out the vaccination programme with primary care and volunteer support. We prioritised vaccinations for carers and rapidly stepped up the NHS Nightingale Hospital Yorkshire and the Humber, delivered ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ sites in care settings, stepped up bereavement support, mental health crisis lines, and delivered new Covid-19 treatment services. All of this is down to you, only you.

I am very proud that through all this vital work, and via our approach to the recovery of our health and care services, we have sought to address health inequalities and prioritise the needs of the most disadvantaged groups of people. I am particularly proud of the review we commissioned into the impact of Covid-19 on black, Asian and minority ethnic communities and colleagues. Delivering the recommendations from this review to tackle health inequalities affecting these groups remains a priority for our partnership, as well as addressing the inequalities for people with learning disabilities. Award winning work in organisations like Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust and Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust is now setting the standard.