The following update has been circulated to Forum Central with permission to share with our partners and members for your information. We continue to support our colleagues at the West Yorkshire and Leeds ICBs during this challenging time of restructure .
To: NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board Members, West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership Board Members, West Yorkshire Senior Leadership Group, Chairs and Non-Executive Forum Members and West Yorkshire ICB Place Partners and Stakeholders
Please feel free to share this with colleagues in your organisations and other partners who you feel would benefit from reading this update
Dear colleagues,
I hope you are well. Thank you all for your continued support as we progress the actions required to deliver the national expectations on cost reductions in the ICB, Trusts and provider collaboratives across West Yorkshire. These will have a material impact on all organisations, directly and indirectly.
On Tuesday this week, we shared the national Model ICB Blueprint with our staff across the ICB. The Blueprint has been developed jointly by NHS England and a group of ICB leaders from across the country. We have played into the group and continue to be involved in further conversations, as some of the work is dependent on the 10 Year Plan recommendations. The group has worked together to very quickly develop a shared vision of the future to provide clarity on the direction of travel and a consistent understanding of the future role and functions of ICBs. As a consequence, there is also greater clarity on the roles of providers, regional and national teams.
The delivery of the 10 Year Health Plan will require a leaner and simpler way of working, where every part of the NHS is clear on its purpose, what it is accountable for, and to whom. We expect the 10 Year Health Plan to set out more detail on the wider system architecture and clarify the role and accountabilities of Trusts, systems, and the centre of the NHS. It is likely the 10 Year Health Plan will be published next month.
The refreshed role of ICBs has been developed through a set of assumptions about a refreshed system landscape, along the lines set out below:
To deliver their purpose, the blueprint sets out that ICBs focus on the following core functions:
- Understanding local context: assessing population needs now and in the future, identifying underserved communities and assessing quality, performance and productivity of existing provision
- Developing long term population health strategy: Long-term population health planning and strategy and care pathway redesign to maximise value based on evidence
- Delivering the strategy through payer functions and resource allocation: oversight and assurance of what is purchased and whether it delivers outcomes required
- Evaluating impact: day-to-day oversight of healthcare utilisation, user feedback and evaluation to ensure optimal, value-based resource use and improved outcomes
ICBs will also have governance and core statutory functions to ensure they are compliant, accountable, and safe.
In order to transition to the new model, it is proposed that some current ICB functions will need to mature and that our capability will need to ‘grow’ (as referred to in the national ICB Blueprint). Some functions will be retained and adapted, and some will need to be reviewed for transfer to other organisations. These are included in the Blueprint to provide an indication of the future state, and the detail and implementation will require further development.
Given the implications of these functional changes on different parts of the system, next steps will need to be developed by working closely with you all locally, as well as further conversations nationally and regionally. In light of this, NHSE has not provided any specific timeframes at this stage.
The draft high-level timeline we are working towards is as follows:
- our draft future structure and functions should be set out and shared with NHSE by the end of May 2025; and
- the new structure will need to be implemented during quarter 3 (October-December) of 2025-26 so cost savings can be realised this financial year.
In line with the model ICB Blueprint, our emerging thinking for West Yorkshire is as follows.
The ICB will be the strategic commissioner for West Yorkshire, convenor of the Integrated Care System, and integrator of providers and services.
As a strategic commissioner, the ICB will ensure that services are planned and delivered in a way that meets the needs of the population both now and in the future. It will involve a systematic approach to defining and measuring outcomes, using data and intelligence to make informed decisions about resource allocation and service delivery.
The ICB will be a convenor, bringing together all partners in the Integrated Care System to agree and deliver its five-year strategy and ensure delivery of local and national priorities by working together effectively and taking mutual responsibility for the results. It will co-ordinate the governance of the partnership and its wider arrangements for collaboration, within a framework of distributed leadership.
It will also be an integrator. Place-based integrator teams will assess population health risk and facilitate place provider partnerships to co-design new integrated models of care. Over time, these functions may move into provider collaboratives. It is worth remembering that each of our places is required to develop a formal provider arrangement by April 2026 at the latest.
To help put this thinking into context, in line with the model ICB Blueprint, the table below sets out a number of transitional core functions and capabilities that the ICB in West Yorkshire would include.
As the work into our operating model develops over the next few weeks, we will share and test our thoughts with partners across West Yorkshire. This is likely to take place through meetings, committees and fora that are already established.
The pace of the changes required in the ICB and for our providers will be significant and we will continue to work with as many people, groups and forums as possible to provide updates.
I recognise that this continues to be a challenging time for organisations across our partnership. We will continue to focus on the delivery of our shared plans, and our priorities as a partnership.
Your continued support, focus and efforts are, as always, appreciated.
Take care,
Rob
