The West Yorkshire Mental Health, Learning Disabilities and Autism (WY MHLDA) Collaborative is made up of four NHS trusts in West Yorkshire:
- Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust
- Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
- Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust
- South West Yorkshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust
Representatives from these trusts make up a committee in common, which meets quarterly and discharges functions the four providers agree they want to collaborate on. The committee in common sits below the four trust boards.
There's a specialised services partnership board (SSPB) which oversees the services that the provider collaborative is accountable for. The SSPB reports up into the committee in common.
The West Yorkshire MHLDA Partnership Board is made up of the four trusts as well as representatives from each place across the system, including local authorities, NHS England (NHSE) and the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector. The partnership board evolved over time from being predominantly led by the trusts to now being more evenly split between NHS providers and leaders form other sectors in the West Yorkshire system. This board is driven by the provider collaborative and its core team and is chaired by Sara Munro, chief executive of Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and senior responsible owner (SRO) for the collaborative.
To support decisions around which trust takes the lead on any workstream, the collaborative agreed a set of principles and a neutral decision-making process to review a provider's capability and capacity, led by the programme team and West Yorkshire MHLDA commissioning hub.
The team
There is a small core team, described as 'organisationally agnostic', which supports the work of the WY MHLDA Collaborative, trusts and the integrated care board (ICB). The team is hosted by Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust and funded 60% by the ICB and 40% by the trusts. The team consists of:
- A programme director.
- Three programme managers (for mental health, learning disability and neurodiversity).
- Two people supporting business management and administration.
- A consultant in public health.
- A project manager for neurodiversity.
- A workforce lead.
There are also ICB colleagues who work in communications and are aligned to the programme, as well as a close relationship with the NHSE locality team. The core team drives the workstreams that report into the WY MHLDA Partnership Board or the committees in common and maintains the range of forums that keep collaboration happening.
In 2017, Dr Sara Munro, chief executive of Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust joined the collaborative as SRO and the core team was steadily brought into place by bringing together existing roles and identifying additional recruitment needs. Sara, also a mental health provider partner member of the ICB, sees her role as giving support and direction for the programmes of work and teams that are delivering them, as well as working with and influencing colleagues in the system.
The core team's role and key objectives is to:
- Lead 'do once' and 'design once' priorities.
- Take responsibility for the commissioning and provision of specialised services and some commissioned services (with accountability and direction remaining with the respective executive director for commissioning in the coordinating provider trust).
- Play a critical leadership role in visibility of the MHLDA agenda across the ICB, including assurance and sharing of good practice.
- Identify and lead bespoke projects at the request of the ICB.
- Support the establishment of strong Place-based partnership arrangements across the trusts, VCSE, local authorities and primary care.
