Dear all,

Hello and welcome to this month’s update from the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership.

This week has marked two years since the establishment of the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership (1 July) and I think the below is a great summary showcasing the work in action across our health and care system that is having an impact and improving care for the people who live, work and play here in Greater Manchester. Just this month we have welcomed two of NHS England’s most senior leaders to see how our partnership working is reducing health inequalities, we are a step closer towards GM being the best place to live for people affected by dementia, and one of our trusts has become the first to recruit dedicated learning disability peer support workers to care for some of the most vulnerable people in our communities.

I also wanted to highlight the links below to our new campaigns resource centre and implore you to check it out. Our public awareness campaigns on topics like where to go to get the right medical treatment, the importance of going for health checks and screening, knowing the signs and symptoms of disease and when to seek advice, are so crucial towards achieving our partnership strategy missions around helping people stay well and detect illness earlier, strengthening our communities, and recovering core NHS and care services. But in a world of 24/7 news and constant scrolling on social media, our campaigns really need to jump out and grab people’s attention. A big part of that is having them shared far and wide. As a partnership of health and care organisations, voluntary sector and community groups we have to our advantage a wealth of channels to share these campaign resources and strengthen the reach of our messages. Please, wherever you can, use these resources so we can reach as many people as possible.

Best wishes,

Paul

Paul Dennett

Chair, Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership Board

Stockport Council has appointed Michael Cullen as their new chief executive following the departure of Caroline Simpson, who took up the position as chief executive of Greater Manchester Combined Authority and Transport for Greater Manchester.

Michael has worked at Stockport Council for 18 years, in a number of different positions, lately as their deputy chief executive and will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the role.

Joanne Roney CBE, chief executive of Manchester City Council, and Place Based Lead (Manchester) for NHS Greater Manchester, has announced she is returning to her native Birmingham in the newly-created post of managing director of its council.

After taking up the role of chief executive at Manchester City Council in 2017, Joanne has led the city council through some of its greatest challenges including the terrorist attack at Manchester Arena, and Manchester's response to Covid-19. She has also shown demonstrable leadership in driving fundamental changes to health and social care as Place Based Lead and has been active in improving employment opportunities and skills for local people.

Joanne will remain in post until the autumn.

Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL) is pleased to announce the appointment of the Trust’s new permanent chief nursing officer.

Kevin Parker-Evans, who has held the position of interim chief nurse at WWL since January 2024, will assume this new role with immediate effect.

With a 23-year-career as a registered adult nurse, Kevin says his priority is helping WWL become a flagship organisation for the delivery of excellent care, putting patients and their carers at the centre of their care.

Dame Ruth May, chief nursing officer (NHS England), and Duncan Burton, deputy chief nursing officer (NHS England), paid a visit to Urban Village Medical Practice (UVMP) in Ancoats, Manchester to learn more about their homeless health service and women’s health hub.

Dr Jen Greenlaw, GP partner (UVMP) and women’s health clinical lead (NHS Greater Manchester), led a presentation about their women’s health hub which provides a range of treatments and services for women, such as contraception.

The practice also has an innovative mobile clinical van which helps them to deliver healthcare to the homeless population of Manchester, in particular homeless women. The van is staffed by a team of nurses who tour the streets and hostels to treat anyone who needs general healthcare, contraception, or wound care.

UVMP also works closely with drug and alcohol services, hospitals and mental health services and is a great example of our partners collaborating to reduce health inequalities and barriers to access.

The Each Baby Counts: Learn and Support (EBC) improvement programme is now entering its second year helping to reduce the number of babies who die or are left severely disabled because of incidents occurring during term labour.

The Greater Manchester and Eastern Cheshire Local Maternity and Neonatal System (LMNS) has been involved with the programme for 12 months and Chloe Hughes (pictured above), project midwife, provides clinical leadership to implement and embed the toolkit in all trusts and maternity units across GM and Eastern Cheshire. 

Reports from maternity units across the country found that escalation was often a major contributor to incidents. This training improvement programme will be embedded with the workforce's mandatory training to improve working practice and escalation, focusing on behaviours, culture, and psychological safety.

Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust’s new emergency department is a visionary and ambitious development to bring together urgent care services under one roof at Tameside Hospital.  

The plan was awarded £16.3 million as part of the Prime Minister’s capital spend programme for the NHS announced in 2019. With the total value of the project being over £20 million.

The redevelopment has seen extensive reorganisation of the site at Tameside Hospital to provide not only a state-of-the-art emergency and urgent care facility, but also an improved approach to helping people when they are experiencing any sort of crisis - be it physical, mental health or social care related.

Greater Manchester’s first learning disability peer support workers have been recruited to improve care for some of the area’s most vulnerable people.

Four people have been appointed to the brand-new roles, which are part of Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust’s learning disability care hub.

The new recruits all have a learning disability or have used learning disability services. They’ll work with learning disability teams in Bury; Heywood, Middleton, and Rochdale; Oldham; Stockport and Tameside and Glossop.

Using their personal experiences, they’ll help service users to set and achieve life goals, stay well, communicate what they think, want, and feel, and get involved with activities and groups. They’ll work across all learning disability teams and help with service improvement projects.

The part-time roles are paid, and they’ll benefit from support to complete a qualification, learn lots of new things and develop new friendships.

The Greater Manchester Dementia and Brain Health Quality Standards 2024 have been developed to promote our vision and ambitions as we work to make Greater Manchester the best place to live for people affected by dementia. The standards are designed to drive quality improvement across the system and should be read alongside the Dementia and brain health delivery plan 2023-2025.

The standards have been developed in partnership with Dementia United stakeholders, including people with lived experience of dementia and representatives from each locality of Greater Manchester. They build on previous standards developed by Dementia United in 2016 and the dementia care pathway recommendations produced between 2018 and 2023.

The dementia and brain health quality standards are designed to drive quality improvement across the system. It’s intended that localities and sectors will benchmark their current position against the standards and identify actions for improvement.

Our brand-new campaigns resource centre has now launched - providing a one stop shop where you can access a wealth of tools to supercharge your advocacy efforts. The resource centre replaces our former campaigns landing page and is designed to equip you with the tools, knowledge and support needed to drive change effectively.

Whether you’re looking for social media messages and assets such as images and videos to push on your channels, or in-depth communication toolkits and newsletter pieces for your internal and external communications, you will find the tools you need to make a real difference in our shared goals.

Together, let's make our campaigns even more effective. Explore the Campaigns Resource Centre today and help us to strengthen our voice.

Euro 2024 is underway and runs until 14 July. High profile sporting events of this kind can be great fun and are a lovely way to come together with friends and family over the summer.

With this in mind, NHS GM has developed social media assets and messaging to encourage people to stay safe and well during the tournament – focusing on responsible drinking and taking care in the sun. Many of our partner organisations have already started posting and sharing via social media – thank you for your support!

You can download our Euro 2024 social media toolkit from the Campaigns Resource Centre on the NHS Greater Manchester website.

The quickest and easiest way to help share these messages is to search for posts (#GTKWTG) on our social media channels and share to your followers.

• NHS GM - Facebook @NHSGreaterManchester; X @NHS_GM; Instagram @nhs_gm
• GMICP - Facebook @GreaterManchesterICP; X @GM_ICP; Instagram @gm_icp

This week it’s Alcohol Awareness Week (1-7 July) and the theme is understanding alcohol harms.  

Alcohol can sometimes play a centre-stage role in our lives. It’s promoted as we watch our favourite sports, advertised as we travel to work and strategically placed in our favourite films and TV shows. It’s there when we celebrate, commiserate and when we’re just trying to cope.

Yet alcohol is harming our health and wellbeing on a daily basis, from the quality of the sleep we’re getting, to our relationships with those we love. And each year, thousands of people experience long-term health problems as a result of the alcohol they drink or die from alcohol-related causes.

But alcohol never impacts people in isolation. So, this Alcohol Awareness Week, Alcohol Change want to get the country talking about the role that alcohol plays in our society, and what it means to families, communities, health workers and those in our emergency services.

If we understand alcohol harm, we can end alcohol harm.  

The recent Projecting Grief Exhibition at The Trafford Centre during Dying Matters Week (6-12 May) was a success, with a lot of meaningful conversations being had with people who have been bereaved.

NHS Greater Manchester’s Suicide Prevention Programme worked alongside Projecting Grief to arrange the exhibition. We had support from the GM Bereavement Service, Bury Hospice, Child Bereavement UK, Sing Their Name Choir members and others, providing information and support.

The Speak Their Name Suicide Memorial Quilt was displayed to highlight suicide loss, and we held workshops on creative writing around bereavement run by the author Freya Bromley.

The Sing Their Name Choir attracted a large audience and the £225 of donations were given to Papyrus (a suicide prevention charity). This sum of money funds 22, one-hour, potentially life-saving calls with young people who may be thinking of suicide.