Agenda item

Councillor Shah MOVED and Councillor Fielding SECONDED a

report which provided an update on how the Council and its partners continued to monitor and manage the impact of COVID-19 in Oldham.

COVID-19 was still circulating across the UK and new cases continued in Oldham every day. The report provided a summary of activity and demonstrated how the Council collectively managed and prevented the spread of COVID-19 across Oldham’s communities.

The report detailed the four key themes which were: Test and Trace; Vaccination; Enforcement and Compliance; and Community Engagement and Communications.

In relation to Test and Trace, on the 18th January 2021, Oldham had begun targeted testing at scale for those that could not work from home, setting up 4 large tests sites for twice-weekly routine testing. This utilised lateral flow devices with rapid results in approximately 30 minutes, ensuring that positive cases were identified at the earliest opportunity. This programme had been extended until the end of June 2021, and was moving towards a different model to significantly increase the number of testing sites at smaller venues that were better suited to meet the needs of residents. In relation to symptomatic testing, the network of local test sites (LTS) operated by NHS Test and Trace continued to operate to provide testing to people with coronavirus symptoms. Three LTS were currently in operation with plans underway for a 4th site in Failsworth. The 3 static sites were situated in:

·         Southgate Street Car Park, Centre of Oldham OL1 1DN

·         Peel Street in Chadderton, OL9 9JX

·         Honeywell Centre, Hadfield Street. Hathershaw, OL8 3BP

Although there was a national booking portal, Oldham continued to work with DHSC to make the process as flexible as possible for residents to ensure that lack of digital access was not present a barrier to being able to access testing. With regards to Contact Tracing and the Local Tracing Partnership (tier2), when an individual tested positive for COVID-19 they were first notified by text or email instructing them to isolate. The national contact tracing tier 2 team received information about all positive cases and attempted to contact to ensure that isolation requirements were understood and to acquire a list

of contacts that the positive case had been in contact with 2 days prior to symptom onset (or test date if there were no symptoms). If after 48hours, the national team had failed to make contact or been unable to acquire the contacts, the cases were securely passed to the Local Authority. Oldham Council only received details of cases who were Oldham residents.

In relation to vaccination, the original Government plan included a vaccination programme comprising 1) mass vaccination sites run by Regional NHS Teams and 2) local sites run by Primary Care Networks under nationally agreed Directly Enhanced Service contracts. A mass vaccination centre had been organised at Greater Manchester level at the Etihad Stadium. Uptake by Oldham residents of the Etihad facility was only just starting to become known to the Oldham system as this was a nationally run programme. The local Oldham vaccination programme was set up as operational from 6 sites within the five Primary Care Networks. During the course of February and early March additional ‘pop-up’ clinics had also been held at Greengate Street Mosque, the EIC Centre and Millennium Centre, all of which had been targeted at encouraging greater levels of update in our BAME communities. The next phase of rollout would continue to move down the Cohort list and focus on supplementing PCN clinics with additional clinics run in hyper-local community facilities such as Mosques. In addition, in March, second doses were being administered as well as first.

Enforcement and compliance included support to businesses, support grants and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. The Enforcement Team (Environmental Health, Licensing, Community Safety and Greater Manchester Police colleagues) were working seven days a week visiting premises, responding to complaints, attending gatherings and serving fixed penalty notices. Prohibition notices had been issued where appropriate to prevent businesses from continuing to trade when instructed to close as part of the

national restrictions. The Enforcement and Compliance partnership had commissioned the provision of COVID marshals to attend locations where there were incidents of heavy footfall such as Dovestones Reservoir and other open spaces, where potential social distancing breaches could occur due to sheer numbers.

With regards to Support to Business, the Chancellor had announced the continuation of business support schemes in the March Budget. Locally, the Council had launched the Discretionary Business Grants for Taxis scheme to help drivers across the borough. The scheme would see eligible drivers receive a one-off payment and was aimed at hackney carriage and private hire taxi drivers who were licensed by Oldham Council. Under the scheme every taxi driver in Oldham could receive £1,000 to help them get over the impact of coronavirus after Oldham Council agreed a potential funding package of more than £1.3million.

Community engagement and communications had been key to the Covid-19 response in Oldham; to ensure residents and businesses were aware of the restrictions and public health advice and were also signposted towards the range of support and advice available from the council and partner organisations. This work had focused on all aspects of the Covid-19

response, including encouraging take-up of the vaccination; signposting towards testing provision; providing public health advice; and publicising support available to residents and businesses. A wide range of communications channels were used to ensure as many people in Oldham as possible, from all communities, were engaged with. This had included out of

home (OOH) billboards and digital screens; social media; video; newsletters; communication through the traditional media; leaflets; community television programmes; and direct engagement with communities; as well as the engagement teams going door-to-door in specific areas to speak with residents and deliver important information.

The Liberal Democrat Group indicated they would be content with written responses to their submitted questions.

Question received from Councillor Sykes:

“I would like to ask a follow-on question from the one I asked at the December Council. 

As I said then ‘in this pandemic, one of the greatest tragedies has been seeing the forced separation of the residents of our care homes from their loved ones.  For the residents of the care homes in our borough who have waited many months to finally meet up with family a visit cannot come soon enough’.

I was delighted then to hear that from 8 March care home residents will be able to receive visits, albeit from one relative only and subject to the requirement that physical contact be limited to holding hands and that the visitor pass a lateral flow test and PPE.  It is far from ideal, but it is a start, and it is my hope that we will do everything in our power to enable such visits to happen on a regular basis.

At the start of February, the Government announced that all residents and staff in care homes have received their first COVID-19 vaccination and promised a second round of vaccinations in coming weeks.  Given that over one-third of all COVID-19 deaths have involved the residents of care homes achieving this would be great news.

However, I was informed on 4 March that in Oldham 91% of residents and just 75% of staff had received their first vaccination, with many refusals amongst staff.  My concern is that if staff refuse to be vaccinated then we shall still see outbreaks of COVID-19 in the future in our care homes.

Can the Cabinet Member please update me on the current situation, specifically I would appreciate answers to the following questions: Have all residents now received their first vaccination? When will the second phase of vaccination be completed? How is the vaccine being promoted to staff to increase take-up? And finally, could the Cabinet Member please give me the good news that vaccination and the introduction of testing for relatives has enabled regular visits to resume?”

Councillor Shah, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Covid-19 Response responded that as at 16th March 2021, 90.9% of care home residents in Oldham had received their first vaccination. It was worth noting that the care home population was not fixed. New residents were admitted and existing residents left. In addition, care home residents could make the decision not to receive the vaccination. Therefore it was very unlikely that we would reach a point where we saw 100%. As part of the Standard Operating Procedure, GP’s were reviewing each care home at least every 4 weeks to identify residents or staff who had not yet received their first vaccination and offering to vaccinate.

The second doses were planned to be completed for the vast majority of care home residents by early April, and these had already commenced. Due to outbreaks at the time the first dose was planned, which resulted in its delay, a small number of care home residents would receive their second dose at the beginning of May.

We had a wealth of information, guidance and FAQ’s that had been developed nationally, and by GM. These had been shared with care home managers and they had been requested to promote the vaccine with their staff. We hold regular meetings with all care homes in Oldham, and this included representation from clinicians, nurses and infection prevention leads, to provide support and answer any questions or concerns. These discussions also helped us to understand any reasons for vaccine reticence so that we could tailor information to support. Care home managers also received a phone call from our Quality Monitoring Officers three times a week, and uptake of the vaccine was also discussed on these calls. The current uptake amongst care home staff was 76.6%, which placed Oldham 3rd in Greater Manchester. As with care home residents, staffing complement changed so we were unlikely to reach 100%.

Indoor visiting (one named visitor only) commenced on 8th March in line with national and local guidance, which required the wearing of appropriate PPE during the visit and a lateral flow test in the 24 hours prior. Pod and outdoor visiting also continued, enabling residents to see more than one visitor in total. A meeting was held with care home managers on 15th March to assess how the first week of visiting had been and the response was positive. Any queries, questions or issues regarding visiting were being dealt with as they arose with support from the Commissioning and Quality service, Infection Prevention and Control Team and social work colleagues as required.

It was agreed that a written response would be provided to all the other questions that had been submitted prior to the meeting.

Councillor Sheldon asked whether there was anything the Council could do to improve the levels of vaccination uptake?

Councillor Shah, Deputy Leader of the Council and Cabinet Member for Covid-19 Response responded that pop-ups across the borough had hugely increased take-up and work was ongoing to improve levels.

RESOLVED that the report be noted.