In March this year the South Yorkshire Integrated Care Partnership convened by the four Local Authorities and NHS South Yorkshire published an ambitious plan to improve the health and wellbeing of South Yorkshire people and tackle health inequality.

At its first Annual General Meeting this week (28 September) NHS South Yorkshire officially launched a ‘Five Year Joint Forward Plan’ which sets out the NHS’s contribution to those wider ambitions.

The plan is a forward look at what is most important for keeping people healthy and making sure everyone has equity of access to healthcare across Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield. 

Working together with providers of NHS services including GP surgeries, dentists, pharmacists, community and mental health services, hospitals and ambulance trusts and with local councils and the voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations. The plan outlines how the NHS will contribute to improving the health and wellbeing of people in South Yorkshire in the next few years.

NHS South Yorkshire has also engaged with local people to create the plan. Last year they asked people, ‘What Matters to You about your Health and Wellbeing’. Over 2,500 responded and said: 

  • We want to be able to get appointments and treatment when and where we need it;
  • When you plan our care think about how costs for transport, parking, medication might affect us;
  • We need it to be cheaper to live a healthy lifestyle;
  • We want to be in control of our own care and have the information and tools to be able to do this.

Gavin Boyle, Chief Executive Officer at NHS South Yorkshire said:

“There are major challenges to improving the health of local people. In South Yorkshire average life expectancy is lower than the national average and people, particularly in poorer communities, live a longer part of their life in poor health.

We know there is much to do. Improving the health of local people will require change in many ways not solely in healthcare. We know that other factors are also important such as access to good jobs, housing, education, the environment we live in and more, which is why it’s so important we work together with our partners. However, the NHS has a big part to play as a provider of healthcare services but also as a large employer and institution within the region, this five-year forward plan sets out our contribution to this.

Fair access to good services in a timely and convenient way is important to all of us and our plan focusses on seven key areas:

  • Improving access to primary care (GPs, pharmacists, optometrists and dentists);
  • Improving maternity services and services for children and young people;
  • Improving access and transforming mental health services;
  • Recovering and optimising cancer, elective and diagnostic pathways; 
  • Transforming community services; 
  • Improving access and redesigning specialist services for those with learning disabilities and autism; and
  • Recovering urgent and emergency care including developing alternatives to A&E.”


Visit the NHS South Yorkshire website to watch an animation summarising what NHS South Yorkshire sets out to do in the plan. You can also read the full report or summary version: https://southyorkshire.icb.nhs.uk/about-us/our-structure/five-year-joint-forward-plan