The West Yorkshire Association of Acute Trusts (WYAAT) Committee in Common have agreed the need to address the differences that exist across the WYAAT area and change the way in which services are delivered. The aim is to improve outcomes for people and make our finances sustainable. In this programme we will work with clinical and operational teams across the six hospitals to review services and make recommendations for future work to improve service sustainability so they are fit for the future.

In August and September 2017, WYAAT led on developing a narrative for West Yorkshire and Harrogate Partnership. This took the vision and ambition set out in the Sustainability Transformation Plan and combined them with the WYAAT five step collaboration model to create the service delivery model shown below. This way of working is set out in Our next steps for better health publications.

Since then, we have been working with the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Clinical Forum and other groups to define and understand what is meant by a "clinical strategy" and design a clinically-led process to develop a single clinical strategy for the whole system. This work is ongoing.

Although WYAAT is leading the work, it is on behalf of the whole system, and is not just a hospitals strategy.

In the autumn of 2017, a data collection was undertaken for the major hospitals specialties across all the WYAAT trusts. This was used in early 2018, with the views of the WYAAT medical directors and strategy and operations groups, to identify a shortlist of services with significant sustainability risks. The shortlist was tested with the WYAAT Executive Workshop in March 2018 which led to three services - ophthalmology (eye care), dermatology (skin) and gastroenterology (the digestive system and its disorders) - being prioritised.

This priority is being led by Dr Robin Jeffrey and managed by Gary Cooper