What is West Yorkshire Voice?

At West Yorkshire Voice, we connect the voices of local people across West Yorkshire to the region’s senior decision makers in healthcare.

This is an exciting way for you to work with NHS in West Yorkshire to shape decisions about how local healthcare is planned and delivered. What we learn from speaking to people, we feed directly back to those who can make changes.

We want you to be West Yorkshire Voice.

“I hope this work celebrates the human side to the health and social care system, to help promote decisions to be person/patient driven and no system/service driven”.

West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership (WY HCP), plans and delivers health and care services for people across the area, has asked Healthwatch, the independent health and care champion, to develop West Yorkshire Voice. 

Why was it created?

West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership and NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board want to understand what matters to local people and communities.

They want to know where people think services can be improved and what’s working well. This is so they can deliver care and support that meets the needs of our diverse population.

To make sure the voice of people is central to its work, the Partnership asked Healthwatch to develop ‘West Yorkshire Voice’ to feed directly into decisions made about health and care.

West Yorkshire districts and illustration of different people

What is the purpose of West Yorkshire Voice?

  • To bring the real voice of people with lived experience and unpaid carers to decision-making.
  • To give an opportunity to those who may not normally be involved and include the voices of those with the greatest health inequalities.
  • To enable and support diverse involvement and representation.
  • To form a key part of how health and care services, through the NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, are held to account by the people of West Yorkshire.

How do we have an impact?

As we have been asked to do this work by healthcare decision-makers, everything we learn from you, gets fed back. We act as a champion for the public voice, promoting the importance of including and involving lived experience perspectives in all healthcare decision making.

West Yorkshire Voice has already made a difference in the work of health and care services in our area. It will continue to develop in partnership with local people to make sure it is accessible, inclusive, and reflective of our communities.

Membership

You can join West Yorkshire Voice as an individual or a group. West Yorkshire includes Bradford District, Craven, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, and Wakefield District.

Indivdual:

As an individual you will be representing your own experience or the experience of someone you support in your personal life.

Group:

The aim of West Yorkshire Voice is to reflect the diverse population and communities from across West Yorkshire.

We want to link in with all the great work already taking place in local areas, but not duplicate what is already underway. We want to do this by linking in with existing community groups, organisations, networks, and other relevant partners.

By joining as a group member, you will be representing the experience of others; these may be people you support or work with as a professional or your peers within a group.

What happens when you become a member:

  • Share feedback:  We will offer lots of ways that you can share your views and experiences of health and care services. We want you to be involved and have your say in a way that works for you.
  • Newsletter: We will send out a newsletter every three months to give you information and updates on the work we have been doing and how you can get involved in future work.
  • Events: We will have events (in person and online) where we will offer different ways for you to give feedback and contribute ideas.
  • Updates: Through the newsletter and at events, we will also update people about how their feedback has been used to make services better.
  • Feedback loop: We will also ask about the changes made. This will help us learn more about how and if things have improved – this is the ‘feedback loop’.

Accessibility and flexibility: Some people might want to give more of their time and get involved in one of our groups. This involves working more closely with staff to discuss the details of the changes we want to improve services. We will make sure this is accessible and help people to get to any meetings so that people won’t have to pay for travel. We can also pay people or offer vouchers for their time and contributions. This will be agreed with the person when they join the group.

You can complete a survey to share your experiences and explain what matters to you in terms of health.

To join West Yorkshire Voice:

Click here to join West Yorkshire Voice as an individual

Click here to join West Yorkshire Voice as a group

Latest updates:

If you require any of these reports in a different format, please get in touch through email: info@healthwatchkirklees.co.uk or phone: 01924 450 379.

Quarterly report to Systems Quality Group: What’s important to the people of West Yorkshire?

This report is a summary of recent feedback—both positive and negative—and the changes we aim to make. At Healthwatch, we believe everyone deserves the best possible health and care services. That’s why we’ve been actively listening to what matters most to our community. By gathering local insights, we’re helping to shape the future of health and care services. Here’s what we discovered and the steps the NHS plans to take in response.

Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Report

West Yorkshire Voice is a network run by local Healthwatch to provide local voices to the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (those in charge of the NHS in West Yorkshire).

West Yorkshire Voice invited people to share their feedback and ideas about what should be included in the region’s new strategy for health and care services.

The focus groups were planned alongside other surveys and events led by the WY ICB: a ‘Stakeholder Day’ and two online surveys, one for the public and one for professionals. West Yorkshire Voice spoke to 46 people about their understanding of equality, diversity and inclusion, what they thought was working well, what wasn’t and any suggestions they had for improvement.

West Yorkshire Insight Briefing – Health Inequalities for children and young people in West Yorkshire, September 2024

This briefing paper is provided by Healthwatch across West Yorkshire and is a summary of the key messages related to children and young people that we have heard via the West Yorkshire Voice, local Healthwatch across West Yorkshire and from insight gathered through focussed outreach and shared by our partners and local Integrated Care Board Colleagues.

We spoke to children and young people, parents, carers of children and young people and professionals. We listened to what works well for children and young people, in healthcare services, what improvements can be made, what worries people about their health and managing their health and for suggestions on what would work better for children and young people and communities.

We also focussed on asthma and mental health; to capture more specific feedback in these areas.

The paper was presented at the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board meeting in September 2024 to support the ‘Focus on’ item – Reducing inequalities for local children and young people in West Yorkshire.

‘Focus on’ Health Inequalities- Working age adults 2024

This briefing paper is provided by Healthwatch across West Yorkshire and is a summary of the key messages related to working age adults that we have heard via West Yorkshire Voice and from local Healthwatch across West Yorkshire.

A survey was shared via West Yorkshire Voice and across local Healthwatch networks, this asked people what works well for them in healthcare services, what improvements can be made, what worries people about their health and managing their health, and for suggestions on what would work better for people and communities.

Want to find out more?

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