Primary care latest updates

During Race Equality Week on Wednesday 7 February, Integrated Care Northamptonshire will be holding a virtual drop-in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Staff Engagement ‘Let’s Talk’ session exclusively for global ethnic minority colleagues across our integrated care system.

It is important to all of us that we create inclusive workplaces where colleagues feel respected, valued and heard. So that we can encourage a culture of openness and honesty, it is essential that we listen to staff to understand their views on pertinent issues and hear about workplace experiences, so we can learn what does and does not work. We will use any feedback to help shape future strategy and action planning.

The ‘Let’s Talk’ session will also be an opportunity for us to share with you the vision for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion within our integrated care system here in Northamptonshire.

Let’s Talk - Wednesday 7 February – 12.30pm to 1.30pm

Go to the Primary Care Portal event

Read Let’s Talk about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion this Race Equality Week…

NHS England's national Chief Strategy Officer Chris Hopson has paid a visit to Northamptonshire to learn more about innovation and collaboration in our integrated care system.

Colleagues welcomed Chris to the county on Friday 19 January, where he first visited Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust's (NHFT) Highfield Clinical Care Centre to see some of our innovative mental health services – including the Mental Health Number telephone service (run by Mind and NHFT), the Crisis Response Unit vehicle launched in 2023, and the Acute Liaison Mental Health Service.

Next on the agenda was a tour of Northampton General Hospital (NGH), where he was shown the state-of-the-art surgical robot, which is being used to support life-saving cancer surgery, and the one-stop gynaecology clinic. He was also given the lowdown on an award-winning sustainability project to reduce the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) at the hospital.

From there it was off to the Hope Centre in Northampton to see work to address health inequalities in action, with a public health team from West Northamptonshire Council delivering health checks and vaccinations for homeless people and rough sleepers.

Finally Chris then visited the Turn Furlong Recovering Independence Bed Unit, where clinical staff from NHFT and social care staff from WNC provide collaborative short-term care to support people in their return home after a hospital stay.

Eileen Doyle, Chief Operating Officer for NHS Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board, said: "We were delighted to welcome Chris to Northamptonshire. It was fantastic to have the opportunity to showcase some of the great work we are doing here to provide better care for people who live and work in our county and Chris spoke really positively about the effectiveness of our integrated working."

Read Northamptonshire welcomes NHS strategy chief…

In recent years, there have been numerous listening and discussion events focusing on race equality in the workplace.  However, now is the time for action so that real change can take place.

Integrated Care Northamptonshire will be celebrating Race Equality Week on Tuesday 6 February 2024.  We are delighted to invite Steve Morrison (Regional Director of Workforce & Organisational Development for NHS England in the Midlands), and Kuvy Seenan, (Head of Equality and Inclusion at NHS England Midlands), to talk to us about how together, we can make positive progress to create an anti-racist, compassionate and inclusive working culture.  

Everyone has a role to play in the fight for racial equality in the workplace, from the top of each organisation to the b7ottom. The sooner we act, the sooner change can become our reality!

‘Race, equality and inclusion is everyone’s business.’

Join us for this online session taking place at 12:30pm on Tuesday 6 February on Microsoft Teams.

Steve and Kuvy have jointly developed the ‘Time for action: Midlands Workforce, Race Equality, and Inclusion (WREI) Strategy’. This strategy aims to create an anti-racist, compassionate and inclusive workforce. It is designed to tackle both structural and day to day racisms that occurs. The idea behind the strategy is that by improving the quality of work life and removing barriers to professional development for ethnic minorities will help improve the experience of all the workforce regarding how the NHS tackles discrimination.

Join Kuvy and Steven as they discuss their work on the WREI and why the strategy is important –  looking at its key principles of educate, challenge and support. The discussion will also look at what this means for our health and care organisations and how we can all work together to tackle discrimination and provide fairer working environments.

Register your interest for this LMC session on Tuesday 6 February

About Steve Morrison

Steve is the Regional Director of Workforce and Organisational Development for NHS England Midlands and has worked with NHS England since 2012. His current role allows him to work with systems and trusts to ensure the delivery of NHS Long Term Workforce Plan. Throughout his career Steve has been involved in large scale organisational change, leadership development and the management of multi-disciplinary teams. This has enabled him to see and understand the negative impact for organisations and their employees when those organisations were not inclusive, diverse, and welcoming of contributions from all.

About Kuvy Seenan 

Kuvy is the head of equality and inclusion for NHS England Midlands. Growing up in Mauritius, Kuvy moved to the UK to train as a psychiatric nurse, since then he has worked within the NHS for about 20 years in various roles. His current role allows him to provide a strategic steer on tackling workforce equality issues across the region and enabling a system approach to inclusion.

Read It’s time to Listen, Act, and Change this Race Equality Week!…

Help us to develop and improve the Northamptonshire Care Record for all users by completing this short online questionnaire.

We are delighted that the Northamptonshire Care Record (NCR) has been used to access over 20,000 patient records so far since it’s launch in October.

The new system is transforming care in Northamptonshire. Now that you have access to the NCR, please take a few minutes to complete the NCR feedback form. Your feedback is essential to help us identify ways we can improve the NCR. We'd like your feedback on the training (if undertaken), on the system itself, how you feel it benefits you in your role and any suggestions you may have. Completing this form will take approximately 3-5 minutes.

Feedback on your experiences so far are vital in helping us shape the system and make future developments so that you can provide safer and better care for patients.

In case you don’t already know, the NCR is a new digital platform that allows health and care professionals across the county to view up-to-date patient information held by local GPs, Northampton and Kettering General Hospitals and Northamptonshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (NHFT).

If you need support with access or training please contact northantsicb.northamptonshirecarerecord@nhs.net. More information can also be found at www.connectingyourcare.net.

Read Share your feedback on the Northamptonshire Care Record…

The Academy of Medical Sciences have just launched a funding opportunity for cross-sector experience. As part of the Academy’s Cross-Sector Programme, the Cross-Sector Experience Awards will support individuals to experience different sectors. The award provides up to £100,000 to support individuals who want to gain experience of working in a different sector between three to twelve months, examples include academia, industry, NHS/healthcare, government and policy-based organisations, charities and the private sector. This should be in a sector different to their current role or roles. The academy welcomes applications from those across disciplines and sectors. Applicants’ current work should have a clear link to the improvement of human health. Applicants do not need to work in research to apply, but their work must have a demonstrable link to improving human health

Applications for round one are now open. The deadline for applications is 16:00 on 29 February 2024.

In 2019, the Academy commissioned independent scoping work to assess what could be done to help people connect across sectors. Five key challenges were identified:

• A lack of incentives
• Difficulties in connecting with the right people/organisations
• Little recognition of mobility in career progression appraisals
• Cultural gaps between organisations
• Lack of resource to support engagement and backfill mobile researchers, particularly from the NHS and small businesses.

To address these challenges, the academy first launched the Cross-Sector Programme in 2022. The programme is designed to bring together innovators and researchers from different fields to promote health innovation. It also offers support to overcome the challenges to collaborating across sectors. 

In November 2023, the funded Cross-Sector Experience Awards scheme was launched. In addition to providing the incentives and resources required to work in another sector, this scheme will support individuals to:

• Gain new skills and share skills between different sectors.
• Generate novel ideas and collaborations that could lead to new innovations.

Find out more information about the grant and how to apply here.

Read New Cross Sector Experience Award Grant launched by the Academy of Medical Science…