About NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board

How we make decisions

Place-based partnerships

The groups that agree what is most important in each place are called Health and Wellbeing Boards. As happens now, the Health and Wellbeing Boards in each of our places - Bradford District and Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield - will agree a health and wellbeing strategy for their place.

Place-based integrated care board committees

Each place-based partnership will have an integrated care board committee to make decisions, similar to the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board. These committees will be made up of local health and care leaders, and they will also include independent people who do not work for health and care organisations.

• Bradford district and Craven
• Calderdale
• Kirklees
• Leeds
• Wakefield district

Partnership Board

These local place-based strategies are based on the things that are most important to local people.  They will be brought together into an integrated care strategy for West Yorkshire, which will be agreed by our Partnership Board. The board is chaired by Cllr Tim Swift. Cllr Swift has been a councillor in Calderdale for 16 years and is the deputy leader of the council.

We also have local and West Yorkshire public involvement activities. All people’s voices are important.

Integrated care board

Our integrated care board will agree an annual plan to deliver the integrated care strategy, as agreed by the Partnership Board.  Most of the decisions about spending and services will be made in local places in place-based partnerships. 

1. Across West Yorkshire

• Partnership Board
• NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board
• West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts (hospitals working together)
• Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism Collaborative
• Community Provider Collaborative
• Hospice Collaborative
• Networked models of service delivery for example cancer, stroke and maternity care

2. Local places (Bradford District and Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, Wakefield District)

• Health and Wellbeing Boards
• Integrated Care Board Place Committees
  • Councils
  • NHS Trust(s)
  • Primary care
  • Healthwatch
• Voluntary, community and social enterprise sector representatives

3. Neighbourhoods (one of 52 Primary Care Networks)

• Local primary care networks (all GP practices)
• Dentists, pharmacists and opticians
• Social care providers/teams
• NHS therapists and community teams
• Other public services e.g. schools and housing providers
• Voluntary, community and social enterprise sector

To make sure that decisions are fair and clear, we have agreed a set of rules that everyone will follow. These are our ‘governance standards’. These set out important things like:

• Holding meetings in public and publishing the papers in advance
• Making sure that the voices of people are heard by involving independent members and Healthwatch.

Text version of infographic diagram: West Yorkshire – Integrated Care Board Structure

Five accountable officers / place-based leads

• Bradford and District Health and Care Partnership
• Calderdale Cares Partnership
• Kirklees Health and Care Partnership
• Leeds Health and Care Partnership
• Wakefield District Health and Care Partnership

Corporate

• Governance
• Estates

Strategy, Partnerships

• Strategy development
• Communication and engagement
• Business Intelligence
• Partnerships
• Improving population health and inequalities
• Primary care, urgent and emergency care, planned care
• Harnessing power of communities (working with voluntary and community sector)
• Citizen engagement / healthwatch
• Flexible programme resource

Finance

• Financial strategy, planning, oversight
• Capital
• Contracting
• Financial management
• Financial accounting
• Audit

Clinical and Professional

• Clinical strategy
• West Yorkshire clinical leadership
• Clinical networks
• Priority programmes for specific populations
• Innovation and Improvement
• Digital
• Medicines optimisation
• Professional networks
• Quality oversight / assurance
• Experience of care
• Research and development
• Antimicrobial resistance
• Safeguarding

People

• Workforce planning and Partnership’s People Plan
• Leadership and organisational development
• Corporate People Team (HR)

Planning and system improvement (aligned from NHS England)

• Annual planning
• Emergency preparedness, resilience and response
• System oversight
• System oversight
• Place based assurance
• Peer review / mutual accountability

The board of the integrated care board

The integrated care board will agree the plan and make decisions about how NHS money is spent and the services it provides. To make sure that the decisions that it takes are fair, the board will be chaired by an independent person, Cathy Elliott, who does not work for a health or care organisation. The board will also have four other non-executive members covering:

• Citizens and future generations
• Finance, audit, and innovation
• Quality
• Workforce.

Together with Healthwatch and local place-based committees, these members will make sure that the views of local people are heard.

Independent perspective

• Chair
• Four independent non-executive members

Healthwatch perspective

• Healthwatch

Place perspective

• Five local place members
• Local authority

Provider perspectives

• Hospital acute provider
• Mental health, learning disability and autism provider
• Community provider
• Primary medical services
• Voluntary community social enterprise sector

Public health perspective

• Director of public health

System executive, clinical and professional

• Chief executive
• Director of finance
• Director of nursing
• Medical director
• Director of people
• Director of strategy and partnerships

Integrated care board committees

To support the integrated care board and to provide assurance that our health and care system is working well, we are establishing the following committees:

• Audit 
• Finance, investment, and performance
• Quality
• Remuneration and nomination
• Transformation
• People (workforce).

​​​​Find out more about the business of our boards and committees on the integrated care board meetings page. 

Learn more about the members of our boards and committees on the integrated care board who's who page.

Accountability

The integrated board is formally accountable to NHS England.  NHS England will carry out an annual assessment of the board’s performance and will publish a report summarising its assessment. NHS England has powers to intervene if it is satisfied that the ICB is failing to discharge any of its functions.

Our constitution

The integrated care board members will oversee how money is spent and make sure that health services work well and are of high quality, bringing together hospitals and community providers, primary care (for example GPs, community services, dental services, pharmacy), local councils, hospices, voluntary, community and social enterprise sector organisations and Healthwatch partners in our local places. To help enable this, we have a constitution.

• Visit our constitution page

The constitution is an important document that sets out what the board will do and how it will work.  We developed the constitution following NHS England guidance and with the support of our partners and stakeholder. The involvement period in 2021 produced responses from partners, external stakeholders, and members of the public. You can read the feedback here.

To support the constitution, there is a governance handbook [LINK}. This sets out how decisions are made, and the arrangements needed to do this.  It builds on our existing collaborative work to establish more robust mutual accountability and break down barriers between our separate organisations.

Collaborative forums

Several collaborative groups support our decision making, these are made up health and leaders across our area. These include the Partnership’s system leadership executive, which brings together the senior leaders from across our health and care system. The clinical forum and finance forum ensure that all decisions are informed by clinical and finance expertise.

• West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts
• West Yorkshire Mental Health Services Collaborative
• West Yorkshire Combined Authority
• Hospice Collaborative
• Community Provider Collaborative