Agenda item

Report ACH22-026

The Committee considered a report providing an overview of the Public Health Department’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Director of Public Health advised Board Members that management of communicable diseases was a part of the Health Protection function which was one of the Public Health statutory functions. Public Health functions in the Local Authority had been defined in the Health and Care Bill 2012. The basis for the Public Health management of the COVID-19 pandemic had been the Bromley Outbreak Management Plan. Public Heath completed and published the first plan in June 2020, pulling together all key partners in the borough. The plan had been updated several times and was overseen by the Health Protection Board. There were a number of workstreams overseeing different aspects of the pandemic response and each of these workstreams had developed and changed as the pandemic had progressed. The Public Health team led in setting up new services to manage the pandemic such as contact tracing, community testing, testing in schools, surge testing and setting up systems to prevent and manage outbreaks. They had also worked closely with SEL CCG on the vaccination programme.

During the pandemic several members of staff in the Public Health team moved from ‘business as usual’ to working on the response to the pandemic almost entirely, leaving those not working on the pandemic to keep all the other work going. Key areas of work were:

1.  Surveillance

2.  Outbreak management

3.  COVID-19 clinical response service

4.  Local contact tracing service

5.  Community testing service

6.  COVID-19 Vaccination

7.  Prevention/Communication and engagement

The Director of Public Health highlighted section 2.2 of the report, Outbreak Management. It was noted that the Public Health team had managed or supported a very large number of outbreaks in different settings. This included incident management meetings and subsequent review meetings with a large number of care homes and schools, which had been a significant amount of work. A Co-opted Member noted that there had been a significant increase in the number of outbreaks in care homes and schools in 2021-22 compared to 2020-21 and asked if the reasons for this were known. The Director of Public Health said that this was due to a combination of factors. The winter of 2021-22 had been impacted by changes in the virus which made it more transmissible, and children had been mixing more at school. It was noted that people had also become better at reporting COVID-19 infections during this time.

The Director of Public Health noted that a peer-review process had been undertaken across London with the aim to identify key lessons learnt and legacy that should be preserved for the future. The key areas identified in Bromley included:

-  Partnership working – both within the Council and across different agencies and stakeholders.

-  Flexibility of workforce – the workforce had shown a great flexibility and ability to take on different roles in a short period of time. Across the Council, staff were able to fulfil various roles and used their transferable skills to support COVID-19 management.

-  Good sub-regional working – the six SE London Public Health teams had worked closely together during the pandemic which had enabled joint working and sharing of information.

In response to questions, the Director of Public Health said that a huge programme of communication and engagement had been undertaken, aimed a vulnerable populations. They had initially worked with various community groups in terms of messaging and preventative measures, followed by a focus on addressing vaccine hesitancy. It was difficult to measure the success of this work, but Bromley had good vaccine uptake rates compared to other boroughs. With regards to morbidity and mortality rates, the Director of Public Health advised that these were generally higher in Bromley due there being an older population and high level of care homes in the borough. It was noted that care home surveillance meetings had been held regularly throughout the pandemic to monitor the support required. The Director of Adult Social Care said that the increase in the number of people entering care homes following discharge from hospital had now levelled off. During the pandemic many patients had made an active decision to receive care in their own home due to the publicity around the number of infections being recorded in care home.

The Chairman congratulated the Director of Public Health and her team for the excellent overview provided and all the work undertaken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These comments were echoed by Members of the Adult Care and Health PDS Committee.

RESOLVED that the report on the Public Health Department’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic be noted.