This month marks the first anniversary of the ICB and this year marks the 75^th anniversary of the NHS! So, I want to reflect on the progress we have made together so far with the system wide Norfolk and Waveney Clinical Strategy.

Before our ICS launched, we worked with patients, residents, health and care staff and other stakeholders to develop a Clinical strategy for what they wanted NHS Norfolk and Waveney to focus on over the next 5 years. This was published July 2022 and sets out our six objectives to help drive clinical transformation across all health and care settings to improve the experience and outcomes for our patients to:.

• See me as a whole person
• Aim towards high quality, resilient services, working together
• Reduce long waiting times
• Always act early to improve health
• Be reliable – for our staff, residents and communities, and
• Tackle health inequalities.

We’ve seen demand soar over the last decade for multiple reasons.  But, we’ve undertaken significant pieces of work to bring our waiting lists down, reduce ambulance handover delays at our acute hospitals, and work with and listen to our staff, residents and communities to build services that work better for them. These are summarised in the table below.

All ICBs have also been tasked with developing an operational Joint Forward Plan. Our JFP will be published imminently, and this will highlight a lot more detail on what we will do, together, to put the clinical strategy into action, to improve outcomes and experiences for our staff, residents and communities, joining health and care services more than ever before. It’s only by working together can we achieve great things. As a system, we’ve developed eight ambitions which we are already working towards.

From the outset, a series of videos were published to help people find out more about each of the six clinical objectives.

It is really vital that we continue to embed the work of the Norfolk and Waveney clinical strategy across our integrated care system so it runs like a golden thread through our work. I would like encourage everyone working in our health and care system, if they haven’t yet already, to read and familiarise themselves with the strategy – you can find it on our website here.

Key highlights and progress made over the last 12 months can be found in the table here. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has contributed to these important pieces of work and projects.

It’s important to remember that this strategy remains fluid. Every year, we will review to not only see how far we have come, but also, to check if it needs updating and what more we need to do.

We will continue to build on these outcomes sharing them with you regularly to demonstrate the progress made against our ambitions and where we continue to focus our efforts.

With thanks for everyone’s continued hard work across the Norfolk and Waveney health and care system and in particular, thanks to each and everyone of you that has contributed in some shape or form into the progress made so far on this important strategy.

Together, we continue to do great things.

With best wishes,

Frankie