Agenda item

The Board received a report advising on the background to the Covid-19 pandemic and the progression of the national response to date.  The Board was advised on the development of the Oldham Covid-19 Management Plan to meet national requirements for local Outbreak Control Plans, the document providing local direction and guidance to collectively manage and prevent the spread of Covid-19 across our communities. This Plan supplemented the existing Oldham Health Economy Outbreak Plan (2018) by providing specific management arrangements to effectively respond to the unique threats posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and would continue to be reviewed and revised in response to changes in national requirements and advice, and to incorporate learning from implementation.

The Director of Public Health made a presentation to the Board considering the four principles behind the development of the Plan: the Plan should be rooted in the Public Health system and demonstrate strong leadership, should present a whole system approach, should be delivered through an efficient and locally effective and responsive system informed by timely data and intelligence, and should be sufficiently resourced.  In regard to the latter point the Board was advised that an allocation of £1.5m had been made for the current financial year.  The Plan needed to consider and address approaches to the prevention and management of local outbreaks.  With regard to prevention, this included access to testing, support for people to isolate, advice on how not to be a contact, hand hygiene, and contact tracing.  With regard to managing and contributing to minimising the impact of any local outbreak, this included building trust and confidence in the local system, having robust data, identified clear roles and responsibilities, and standard operating procedures.

Seven themes for the control of any local outbreak had been identified – care homes and school, high risk places, local testing capacity, contact tracing in complex settings, data integration, vulnerable people, and local boards/governance structures – and the actions required in each of these areas was considered.  With regard to governance, the Board was advised that nationally a ‘Health Partnership Board’ to maintain day to day oversight was required: in Oldham this had been established as the Covid-19 Prevention and Control Board chaired by the Director of Public Health and which fed into the Covid strategic command structure which was important if more wide ranging actions needed to be escalated.  The remit of the Member-led Health Protection Sub-Group of this Board had been extended to consider communications with the public and to ensure linkage to this Board.  A local Equalities Advisory Group had also been established in response to national awareness of equalities issues arising through the pandemic.

The Board received an Executive Summary of the Management Plan and was advised of next steps, including desktop exercises, developing local plans in response to the Contain Framework published on 17^th July, and the continuing review and evaluation of the Management Plan through the Covid-19 Prevention and Control Board.

In response to a query concerning circulation of detail to community groups, the Director of Public Health confirmed that the Service would be happy to share detail and that much work had already been undertaken with Action Together; this included a joint webcast to be made later that week.  Further to a query concerning the elderly and a suggestion that they appeared not to be highlighted as vulnerable in the same way as early in the pandemic, it was confirmed that the elderly as a group are vulnerable to Covid and the outbreak plan recognised the group as being at high risk and a priority for test and trace.  Further comment was made regarding how much older people seemed to have aged when subject to lockdown, emphasising the need to get Oldham moving again and the need to promote face coverings as a means to build confidence to get people leaving their homes.

The importance of communications was considered, it being noted that lessons around the need for dynamic communications and engagement could be taken for the experiences of other local authority areas.  It was queried whether there was any particular tipping point identified that would lead to government intervention.  The Board was advised that a more public facing version of the executive summary had been prepared and that a communications strategy was near completion.  The public dashboard was currently updated weekly on the Council’s website and was being further developed as additional data became available.  The experience of Leicester was noted and the Board advised that several considerations, including the direction of travel on the number of cases and the number of positive cases, could point towards possible intervention.  

Comments were made such that, notwithstanding the current position in Oldham, complacency needed to be guarded against and that the Plan would need to be changed as circumstances changed.  The work of the Public Health Team in developing the Management Plan in the required timescale and in light of all other work required at this time was noted and supported and the Management Plan commended. It was noted that further consideration of this matter would be made in closed session.