Reflections on the February Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Meeting from Sam Keighley, VCSE Lead for the BDC Health and Care System
Meeting held on 13 February 2026
The Bradford District and Craven Health and Care Partnership Board is the strategic body which sets the shared strategic ambition for the system where we work to an ethos of ‘Act as One’ to help keep people happy, healthy and at home.
We have two Voluntary, Community, and Social Enterprise (VCSE) voices on this partnership board.
Sam Keighley as VCSE lead for the health and care system.
Craven VCSE colleagues have been sharing representation of the specific
voice of Craven VCSE and the challenge of rural inequality. Peter Jones from
Augment workspace in Skipton was at February’s meeting
Key points and asks
Please let Sam (email Sam@thevcsalliance.org.uk) know if you are still wating for 2026/27 contract decisions from the ICB; what the contracts are, what are the risks of the contract not being continued, including knock on impact on health services and on your workforce and core costs / stability. This will help her continue pushing for decisions.
At this meeting the stability risk for grassroots organisations remained on red, and action was agreed to resolve the contract decision problem. Sam prevented the risk of stability of grassroots VCSE organisations from being downgraded and she is pursuing the lack of notification on contracts continuation from the ICB with vigour.
It’s also important to note that changes to Health and Care System Governance will take place from 1 April. The last Partnership Board Meeting in this form is public and will take place on 20 March — more information about the changes will be shared soon.
Please also let Sam (email Sam@thevcsalliance.org.uk) know what you think of the new format for her reflections, seen in the full document viewable below.
Read the full reflections here
