A new partnership involving some of Leeds’ biggest organisations has come together to improve people’s health and wellbeing both in the city and beyond.
The Leeds Academic Health Partnership (LAHP) includes Leeds’ six major NHS organisations, Leeds City Council and the city’s three universities - Leeds Beckett, Leeds Trinity and the University of Leeds.
Together, they have committed to working more closely on areas where sharing strengths and skills can help to tackle some of the biggest health and care challenges people living in Leeds face.
To help improve health outcomes, the Partnership will place particular emphasis on attracting new investment in health and care.
The city is already a leading location nationally for health innovation, with several major private companies in healthcare based in Leeds, plus a thriving third sector and several national public sector health and care organisations.
The LAHP aims to inspire closer working across different sectors to address people’s changing health needs and make the most of the opportunities offered by new technologies and different ways of working.
Alongside this, the Partnership will also focus on getting the health and care workforce in Leeds ready for the future, making it easier for people from different organisations to take part in shared training and learning and develop new skills and knowledge.
The LAHP aims to ensure communities across Leeds receive the highest standards of care.
A business case setting out the purpose and ambition of the Partnership was endorsed by Leeds City Councillors at their Executive Board meeting on Wednesday 20 April.
Leeds joins a number of other major cities in the UK that have brought their health and care providers and leading universities together around a common set of ambitions.
Leaders in Leeds believe a particular strength of the LAHP compared to other cities is the involvement of so many key partners, including the city council and local commissioners.
Sir Alan Langlands, Chair of the Leeds Academic Health Partnership and Vice Chancellor at the University of Leeds said:
“We are pleased to be bringing Leeds three universities and all of the main local NHS and council services together around our shared ambitions of improving health and wellbeing, reducing health inequalities and creating wealth for people in Leeds.
“It is an exciting time to make this collective commitment. The health and care sector is rapidly changing. The Leeds Academic Health Partnership will look at what’s on the horizon, work with national, international and regional partners and ensure Leeds is ready to make the most of the opportunities available.”
Councillor Lisa Mulherin, Executive Member for Health, Wellbeing and Adults Services and the Chair of the Leeds Health and Wellbeing Board said:
“This is an important development for Leeds. We have lots of great work already happening across health and care services in the city, whilst our three universities are highly regarded and extremely popular in this field. We want to build on these assets by working together to make the maximum difference to people’s lives, the added value of formalising this partnership will significantly help us to do that.
“By working as one city we're focused on using our collective skills and resources to address the major health inequalities we still face. This Partnership demonstrates that Leeds is a great place to work and invest in health and care. I’m pleased there is so much enthusiasm for taking on our challenges together.”
The Partnership already has a number of big projects underway, starting with an event in June to raise the profile of the city’s work on personalised medicine.
Personalised medicine focuses on how new technologies and medical advances enable people to receive treatment tailored more specifically to them, based on their individual predicted response, or risk.
Leeds has been chosen to be a ‘Precision Medicine Catapult’2 - one of several centres of excellence across the country leading on the development of more personalised healthcare.
The event will give health and care professionals in the city a chance to work together on how this could change the way people receive support.
For further information
Contact the LAHP via the University of Leeds press office on pressoffice@leeds.ac.uk or call 0113 343 4031.
The ten partners on the LAHP are: Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust; Leeds Beckett University; Leeds City Council; Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust; Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust; Leeds Trinity University; NHS Leeds North Clinical Commissioning Group; NHS Leeds South and East Clinical Commissioning Group; NHS Leeds West Clinical Commissioning Group; the University of Leeds
The ‘precision medicine catapults’ across the country have been identified through Innovate UK. Precision medicine is expected to be a major growth area in healthcare over the coming years and being a ‘catapult’ means that Leeds is a regional hub for research and innovation in this field. Leeds has adopted the term ‘personalised’ medicine both as a more accessible term and also to reflect the link between the medical aspect of this work and the wider agenda around providing more personalised care across the city. https://pm.catapult.org.uk/home