Foreword - Margaret Edwards
"My job now is to listen to what they are saying, and make it happen. I hope that this report – based on the findings of some of our leading clinicians in the region – will convince you too of why we cannot simply stand still if we want our health and our health service to flourish into the next decade."
This year will see the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the NHS. In Yorkshire and the Humber, as elsewhere round the country, we are proud and privileged to work for a service which touches everyone in the region at some time in their life.
The communities we now serve are very different to when the NHS was set up. Public expectations are changing; working and family lives have altered; people are living longer and the patterns of disease are radically different from sixty years ago. Technological innovations – whether these are new drugs or new machines – have transformed the way in which we can deliver care. And research means we now know much more about what works and what doesn't.
I am delighted that over 150 clinicians – doctors, nurses, midwives and other professionals from across the region – have taken the time and trouble to look at our services in Yorkshire and the Humber in the light of the challenges of the next decade. This report summarises the work they have done, and sets out a very ambitious and wide-ranging set of recommendations to improve health in Yorkshire and the Humber, and to improve the quality, safety and accessibility of our services.
My job now is to listen to what they are saying, and make it happen. I hope that this report – based on the findings of some of our leading clinicians in the region – will convince you too of why we cannot simply stand still if we want our health and our health service to flourish into the next decade.
Margaret Edwards
Chief Executive
NHS Yorkshire and the Humber
Foreword - Chris Welsh
"I am very proud of the NHS. And, as a doctor who has worked for the NHS for more than 35 years, I am very proud of the advances the NHS has made that have transformed life expectancy and outcomes for millions of people in Yorkshire and the Humber."
All too often, services are still based on history, built around historical patterns of disease and buildings, not on the evidence of what works or the health needs of today's population. This report shines a spotlight on how we could make some changes which would improve the experience and quality of care that people receive, so that their chances of being disabled or death were reduced.
Take the treatment of stroke for example. The evidence shows that we could save up to 600 lives each year and significantly reduce the disability associated with stroke if we speeded up expert diagnosis and treatment. This is but one of many examples highlighted in this report.
I want to thank all the very many staff who have given up their time to work on the eight clinical pathway groups. This report signals the ambition of clinicians to make sure our individual practice is based on the best evidence available, and that the care provided is based on what we know gives the best results. These changes will not happen overnight. They rely on all of us working in the NHS to embrace a culture of evidence-based practice.
The eight clinical pathway groups have been made up predominantly of staff from the NHS. I make no apologies for that. We needed to put clinicians back at the heart of shaping the NHS's future. But every group has highlighted to me the need for much wider involvement – with patients, with the public, with local authorities, with carers, with volunteers and voluntary groups, with business, with all the different players that contribute to the health and wealth of Yorkshire and the Humber. I hope this will be a key part of how local NHS organisations take this forward.
This report highlights how important it is that we take seriously as a society our physical and mental wellbeing. By the end of the next decade, over 1.5 million people in Yorkshire and the Humber are predicted to be living with some kind of long-term condition.
the next decade, then we need to be ambitious not just for services but for the health of our population.
Healthy ambitions.
Join me in making them the future.
Chris Welsh
Clinical Chair, Next Stage Review NHS Yorkshire and the Humber
Medical Director, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust