Building the future of health and care through innovation, inclusion, and system-wide collaboration
At the heart of Leeds’ health and care ecosystem lies an ambitious initiative – the Leeds Health and Care Academy. Unlike conventional training and education models, the Academy’s work is not confined to the NHS and social care. It is a system-wide, collaborative venture that is feeding, growing, and sustaining local talent through a unique blend of innovation, equity, and community engagement.
From preparing the next generation of professionals to supporting people with long-term health conditions into meaningful work and to thrive once in work, the Academy is helping Leeds to become a national leader in building a resilient and inclusive health and care workforce.
A multi-layered strategy for growing and sustaining talent
The Academy is the first of its kind in the UK, transforming the thinking, learning and culture across the entire local health and care workforce in line with the city’s needs and priorities.
Director Kate O’Connell, and Head of the One Workforce Programme Shell Stanley, explained how this unique partnership is taking an integrated approach to workforce transformation.
It is opening up opportunities for young people, helping them explore, prepare for, and thrive in a wide range of health and social care careers as well as ensuring that work remains accessible and sustainable, particularly for people from the city’s most deprived neighbourhoods and those facing barriers, such as long-term health conditions. Other critical approaches include supporting non-linear career progression, skills development that anticipates the changing technologies and needs of care, inter-professional collaboration across organisational boundaries and city-wide workforce planning for the sector.
A unique opportunity to learn and work across organisational boundaries
The Leeds Health and Care Academy is a pioneering collaboration dedicated to transforming the city’s health and care workforce. Bringing together the city’s major public, voluntary, independent and academic institutions 1, the Academy leverages the collective strength of local government, healthcare, education, and community networks. This scale and diversity gives it significant reach and influence, positioning the Academy as a uniquely powerful vehicle for citywide innovation and workforce development.
The UK’s third largest city, Leeds has recently been the focus of national attention for its leading health innovation strengths. In June, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, hailed the city a “healthcare innovation powerhouse”, and soon after it was announced that Leeds will play a pivotal role in delivering the Government’s health mission.
‘Fit for the Future’, the Government’s 10 Year Plan for Health is underpinned by “embracing partnership . . .instead of going it alone.” The Academy is a standout example of how deeply embedded yet impressively agile infrastructure is enabling partnership to thrive, with a razor-sharp focus on transforming health and care for all.
“Because we’re not bound by a single sector’s remit or governance structure, we can move quickly, act collaboratively, and focus on system-wide transformation,” explains Kate. This flexibility creates a model of partnership and opportunity that few other cities can match.
Connecting communities and opportunities
The Academy’s targeted initiatives such as the Talent Hub, Leeds is actively connecting communities to a wide spectrum of health and care roles, not just clinical ones.
“The Talent Hub has gone beyond simply listing the obvious hurdles people face like a lack of qualifications or experience and has focused on uncovering the deeper, systemic reasons why some groups remain excluded from health and care careers.
“Through engagement with communities, data analysis, and work with employers, it has identified underlying causes. For example, recruitment processes that unintentionally favour certain applicants, inflexible work patterns that exclude those with caring responsibilities or health conditions, and a lack of targeted pathways for people from underrepresented backgrounds.
“By addressing these root causes rather than just the visible symptoms the Talent Hub is tackling the structural and cultural issues that create long-term barriers, paving the way for genuinely inclusive workforce growth.” explains Shell Stanley.
The Academy is at the heart of Leeds’ ‘One Workforce’ approach for the city’s entire health and care sector. The One Workforce strategy involves partners working together to ensure Leeds has a well-trained, well-supported workforce at all levels and across all services, who are reflective of their local communities and who serve local people’s needs.
The Academy helps people with diverse backgrounds, for example those with lived experience of barriers to accessing services or who have overseas qualifications, move into meaningful roles in health and care. Instead of relying solely on interviews, it offers hands-on trial experiences where people can find out more about which role or setting best suits their personal aspirations.
This approach flips the usual recruitment process, rather than employers asking if someone fits the job, candidates can see if the job fits them. The result? A retention rate of over 90 per cent – far higher than traditional methods.
This work is also mirrored in schools and colleges through a citywide collaboration focused on children and young people. With input from the Leeds Learning Alliance, education partners, and employers, this initiative promotes public health awareness and career readiness from an early age.
Through interactive workshops, sector-themed projects and visits to hospitals, care settings and training facilities, young people gain a real sense of what working in health and social care looks like day-to-day. They take part in activities such as basic first aid training, shadowing healthcare professionals, and role-playing patient scenarios to build confidence and skills. Importantly, the initiative helps them connect their own experiences and abilities with future career options.
“Many don’t realise the skills they already have,” says Kate. “We help young carers, for example, recognise that helping their relatives with daily tasks is social care in action. It’s about connecting identity and lived experience with opportunity.”
A Health T-level has also been established by Academy partners in 2020 and is seeing real traction as an alternative route into the sector. Eighty-five per cent of the first cohort went on to enrol at university, undertake an apprenticeship or gain employment in health and care.
“I was able to gain so much experience and knowledge throughout the course, and the industrial placement allowed me to develop an in depth understanding as to what working in healthcare would be like,” said one Health T Level graduate.
This approach has already led to more young people considering health and care careers, with schools reporting increased interest in related courses and work placements. By making the sector accessible and showing that valuable skills can come from everyday life, the programme is building a future workforce that is both skilled and deeply rooted in the communities it serves.
Sustaining the workforce: embedding health in work
The second prong of the Academy’s approach focuses on long-term sustainability, recognising that good work and good health are deeply interlinked. Leeds is a national trailblazer in this regard, embedding health-conscious practices into employment pathways.
The Academy’s Thrive at Work Leeds programme exemplifies this commitment, supporting individuals with health conditions to either remain in employment or re-enter the workforce, via flexible, personalised pathways.
Similarly, Career Compass Leeds, a digital platform developed by the Academy, offers career guidance informed not only by ambition and skills but is also developing further to support career choices informed by each individual’s health needs and lived experiences.
As Kate explains, “People may aspire to be a nurse, but not everyone can work 12-hour night shifts. We’re building tools that help people make health-informed career decisions, ensuring they’re placed in roles where they can thrive.”
Why good work is good for economic growth
This forward-thinking innovation matters because the economic and social costs of poor health at work, or no work at all, are staggering:
- In 2023, rising long-term sickness absences cost the UK economy £32.7 billion in lost productivity alone2 .
- More broadly, combined losses from sickness absence, informal caregiving, and health-driven worklessness total approximately £100 billion annually3 .
- A report from the Commission for Healthier Working Lives estimates that better support for people with health conditions to remain employed could save the Government over £1 billion, given that work-related ill health costs around £400 million per week4
Thrive at Work is part of the region’s Health and Growth Accelerator. It connects health and social care workforce to initiatives which help them remain healthy at work, return with confidence after illness or support them with career choices and transition.
This supports a wider, multi-million-pound Government initiative launched in 2024 to support people into work. West Yorkshire became one of eight Trailblazer locations chosen to help tackle economic inactivity, and one of just three locations identified as an ‘Accelerator’, receiving extra funding to target the health drivers of economic inactivity.
By designing employment pathways such as Thrive at Work Leeds and Career Compass Leeds, the Academy is doing more than easing individual journeys. It’s helping transform some of the UK’s costliest economic challenges into sustainable opportunities.
Because the Academy is deeply embedded into the city’s infrastructure, its work can rapidly adapt when national policies or emerging needs arise. “We’re agile,” Kate adds. “When new national policies emerge, we’re ready to turn ideas into action quickly, effectively, and with impact.”
This connectivity, paired with local agility, means Leeds isn’t just responding to systemic challenges, it’s leading the way.
Anchored in equity
The Academy’s commitment to health equity is more than a value, it’s a driving force behind its entire strategy. Through initiatives like the Talent Hub and school engagement programmes, the Academy intentionally targets areas of high deprivation, ensuring those most in need are reached first.
“We always ask: how does this intervention level up opportunity?” says Shell. “Everything we do from engagement to innovation and delivery, is shaped by the goal of narrowing inequalities and improving outcomes for the most disadvantaged.”
This fits closely with the city’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy, especially its aim to improve health more quickly for the city’s poorest communities.
By improving health for everyone, especially those who face the greatest challenges, Leeds is creating a healthier, more resilient workforce. This approach doesn’t just benefit individuals; it drives growth for all, making the city an attractive place for businesses and innovators in health and care. With a future-ready talent pool trained to meet the sector’s evolving needs, Leeds is positioning itself as a go-to destination for organisations looking to build the health and care systems of tomorrow.
Agile, inclusive and aligned with real-world needs
As Leeds continues to grow as a centre of excellence for health innovation, the role of the Leeds Health and Care Academy will only deepen. With a long-term strategy in place, it remains agile, inclusive, and aligned with real-world needs.
Dr Sara Munro, CEO of Leeds and York Partnership NHS Trust, Leeds Community Healthcare Trust and executive lead for One Leeds Workforce, explained how the city’s unique approach of combining early talent development with inclusive, health-informed workforce sustainability, is what sets Leeds apart.
“By working together as a city we’re not only addressing today’s challenges, but also laying the foundation for a healthier, fairer future.
“Our One Workforce approach, and the wider work of the Leeds Health and Care Academy, is a powerful example of how place-based innovation, when grounded in partnership and purpose, can lead to fairer, healthier futures for everyone.
“We’re motivated by our shared commitment to being a healthy and caring city for all ages, putting equity at the heart of our decisions and priorities.
“We’re passionate about working together and know that sustainable progress will only be achieved if we connect, enable, learn and innovate collectively to build a workforce that reflects the values, strengths, and diversity of Leeds.”
References
Main image credit: South_agency
1 Leeds City Council, Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Leeds and York Partnership Foundation NHS Trust, NHS West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, Leeds Academic Health Partnership, Forum Central, Leeds GP Confederation, University of Leeds, Leeds Beckett University, Leeds Trinity University, Leeds Care Association, and Leeds City College.
2 Zurich Insurance – https://www.zurich.co.uk/media-centre/work-absences-due-to-long-term-sickness
4 The Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/mar/10/support-people-ill-health-stay-in-work-could-save-uk-1bn
Discover more about Health Innovation Leeds:
Health Innovation Leeds represents the city’s internationally-renowned ecosystem for health and care research and innovation. It is supported by Leeds Academic Health Partnership, one of the biggest partnerships of its kind in the UK. Its members work together to solve the city’s hardest health challenges.
