Agenda item

Sharon Stoltz thought it would be useful for the Board to have sight of the risk log that the Outbreak Management Group (OMG) used. The OMG brought representatives from all teams across the council to work on the Outbreak Control Plan.  Sharon explained the different themes and named the Public Health Practitioner who led on each of them.

Theme 1 had been separated into Schools and Care Homes.  Care Homes were managing to control the spread of infection well with the risk level RAG rated at Green.  Leigh Bell was the Practitioner who led on Care Homes.  Schools was led by Anita Dobson with support from Maxine Squire.  Schools had been coping well throughout the pandemic with no whole school closures having to take place.  Head Teachers and their staff had done a great job with disseminating public health messages to their students and families as well as carrying out a lot of their own contact tracing before even being asked.  The only concern, Fiona stated, was that should there be a massive influx of cases in schools, it could create a staff capacity issue if most had to self-isolate. If  guidance was followed however, it would dramatically reduce the risk of this happening.  This explained why the risk was currently RAG rated as Amber.

Theme 2: High Risk Settings and Vulnerable Populations had been split into Workplaces, Universities and other vulnerable populations.  Universities was led by Nick Sinclair and Peter Roderick.  This theme had been rated amber due to the amount of staff capacity required to support it.  Workplaces was led by Natalie McPhillips with support from the Public Protection Team and their Environmental Health Officers.  It was a very resource intensive work as we needed to react quickly to any clusters or outbreaks that were identified.  There had been no difficulties reported accessing businesses and they had been very compliant with the suggestions made at each site visit.  Working relationships with businesses had become a lot better throughout the pandemic but there was still some work to be progressed to help them understand the necessity to self-isolate if required to do so. Workplaces had been RAG rated as Amber. 

Themes 3 & 4 covered the local contact tracing and testing arrangements. Philippa Press led on this. Another application was currently being prepared for the second walk-in test site at the other side of the city, which was still being identified. Consultations with Deloitte and PHE had already started.  Fiona reported that access to testing had been improved but there were still issues around the timeliness of the results coming through to us.  This was a national issue that the government was aware of and was also why the risk level had been RAG rated as Amber.

Theme 5 was around data.  This theme had fostered a lot of cross agency work from across the CCG, CYC and the Hospital. Data sharing agreements had been developed to be able to look at the biggest, most complete current picture of York.  As discussed earlier this was monitored daily with trends being reviewed on a weekly basis.  This theme was led by Peter Roderick with the support of Ian Cunningham and the Business Intelligence Team. 

Theme 6 was around the support for vulnerable people.  This theme’s risk level had been RAG rated as Green as the covid support hubs had been very stable, but further volunteers were needed to support this.  Fiona noted the great help York CVS had given to support this.

Theme 7: Governance had been RAG rated as Green since the Outbreak Management Group met regularly and received good support from the Public Health Team and elsewhere in the council.

The Board noted the risk log as presented by Sharon Stoltz.