Agenda item - Public Involvement

To consider the following items raised by members of the public:

 

(a)      Petitions: To receive any petitions presented by members of the public to the full Council or to the meeting itself;

(b)      Written Questions: To receive any questions submitted by the due date of 12noon on the 10 July 2020.

(c)       Deputations: To receive any deputations submitted by the due date of 12 noon on the 10 July 2020.

 

4.1       Janet Strang

 

4.1.1   Janet Strang asked the following question:

 

"At the beginning of the current pandemic, local MP Peter Kyle was expressing dismay at the vulnerability of patients and staff in care homes. At the same time, the GMB trade union was reporting that at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, BAME staff were being bullied, discriminated against, and pressured to work without adequate PPE. 

 

Does the HOSC share my concern about the high proportion of BAME deaths due to Covid-19, and if so, will the HOSC invite a senior officer to appear at its next meeting to provide the relevant statistics for Brighton & Hove?"

 

4.1.2   The Chair responded:

 

 “I certainly share your concerns about the impact of Covid on BAME communities. The HOSC will definitely want this to be a major focus of its scrutiny of health & care system recovery planning and I will ensure that this issue is addressed at the future HOSC meetings when we look more closely at the local Covid response and at local system recovery and resilience planning.”

 

4.1.3   Ms Strang asked a supplementary question:

 

I understand that the CCG has been working to assess the impact of Covid 19 on BAME communities within the city. Can the Chair confirm which BAME groups and networks the CCG has engaged with and what the outcomes of this work have been?

 

4.1.4   The Chair agreed to provide a written response to this query.

 

 

4.2       Valerie Mainstone

 

		4.2.1  Valerie Mainstone asked the following question:   "The founding ethos of the NHS was that it would provide healthcare for everyone, free at the point of need. Now, voluntary organisations such as Medact, and Docs Not Cops, are extremely concerned about migrants who are unwilling to access NHS services, for fear of being charged sums of money that they cannot afford, and/or of being deported if NHS staff report them to the Home Office.   "Does this HOSC deplore the fact that current rules deter some people from seeking NHS help during the pandemic, and agree that NHS services throughout the country should be free and available to all at the point of need, regardless of ethnicity/nationality/immigration status?"   4.2.2  The Chair responded: Aside from the moral of the Hippocratic Oath which compels medical people to treat anyone in need, I believe it is dangerous and counter-productive to bar anyone from medical help during a time of pandemic. We should bear in mind that many migrants and asylum seekers are barred from seeking employment, which in turn precludes them from paying NI contributions, even though they would dearly love to do so, and to make a contribution towards society. However, returning to the issue at hand, which is Health, it makes no sense to leave untreated conditions to get worse, which may in turn adversely affect the population at large.

4.3       Dr Yok Chang

 

4.3.1  Dr Chang asked the following question:

 

"It seems that HOSC has not met because NHS bodies have been charged with the following tasks, but were not ready with responses yet:

 

• An evaluation of the local Covid response across the health and care system.
• An explanation of the changes made to NHS services in recent months made under urgency powers (i.e. service changes that in normal circumstances would have required consultation with HOSCs).
• Plans for recovery across the local health and care system – i.e. returning services to ‘normal’ including dealing with the backlog of elective procedures etc."

 

Please would you clarify what service changes were made under the corona crisis and are these changes permanent or reversible if now open to scrutiny.”

 

4.3.2  The Chair responded:

 

 “CCGs have spoken to me about bringing a report on NHS service changes made under urgency powers to all Sussex HOSCs. This needs to be a coordinated approach as some of the changes will impact on more than one local authority area. The earliest point at which these reports can be presented more or less simultaneously to each of the HOSCs is early autumn. Brighton & Hove HOSC will therefore consider this issue at its October meeting. In instances where the NHS wants to make a temporary service change permanent, the HOSC will want to understand the rationale for this move, including its impact on the patient experience, particularly in terms of equalities.”

 

4.4       Madeleine Dickens

 

4.4.1   Ms Dickens asked the following question:

 

“Various Government initiatives to deal with Covid- 19 have proved tragically ineffectual. Net result one of the highest death tolls. One such failing was the guidance issued that “negative tests are not required prior to transfers / admissions into the care home”, contributing to a public health disaster.

HOSC members are no doubt extremely concerned about the Government failure to liaise and share intelligence with Local Authorities which has exacerbated the crisis.

 

With so many unnecessary deaths and grieving families across the city, will members call on the Full Council to convene public enquiry into this issue to ensure concerns and questions can be answered and guidance developed to avoid any re-occurrence?"

 

4.4.2   The Chair responded:

 

It’s evident that the Covid crisis has exposed a number of weaknesses in resilience planning; and I agree that there is a pressing need to learn from the events of the past few months, so that we can be better prepared for future outbreaks and better able to protect our most vulnerable communities. A full ‘public enquiry’ is something that can only be established at a national level, and we don’t currently know what the Government’s plans are regarding this, although the Secretary of State for Health & Social Care has said today that there will be an enquiry. Given this current uncertainty, I’m not sure that it would be a good use of resources to seek to establish a purely local enquiry at the present time. There is a real risk that we would end up duplicating the work of a national enquiry.

 

4.4.3   Ms Dickens noted that she had concerns about the timing and form of any national enquiry and reiterated the need for a local enquiry. The Chair responded that we will need to wait to see what the Government plans. However, the HOSC will definitely be looking at the local Covid response and at system plans going forward.

 

4.5       Chris Tredgold

 

4.5.1  Mr Tredgold asked the following question:

 

'Care Home residents have been the most severely affected by Covid-19 - accounting for over 40% of England’s high death rate.

Age and undiagnosed infected patients discharged from hospital have been causes of this - but so have a lack of testing and adequate PPE.

Testing is at last planned - weekly for the staff, monthly for the residents.

Homes and Local authorities need the results quickly.

How will the HOSC ensure that all staff and residents in Care Homes receive clear test results and that all staff have access to adequate PPE?'

 

4.5.2   The Chair responded:

 

The impact of Covid 19 on people living in residential care is something that should concern all of us; and as your question says, the issues of PPE and testing are particularly crucial.

 

I’m glad to say that there is some positive news locally. In terms of PPE, all care homes have access to PPE. If they are unable to purchase themselves via their usual supply routes, they can access government stocks via the Local Resilience Forum (LRF). The LRF delivers the stocks to the Local Authority, and in BHCC we have put in place a distribution Team to distribute this PPE to all care providers who require it. This includes care homes, home care, childcare settings, education settings and other commissioned and partner organisations and to individuals providing care. The use of PPE is monitored via Care Quality Commission, and through the Council Quality Monitoring Team, and also via additional Infection Control input to all care homes for advice and support.

 

In terms of testing Public Health and Commissioning & Contracts leads are communicating regularly with care homes to ensure they know how and when to register for whole home testing and to monitor the results of the tests and any issues with registering, receiving tests and receiving results. An inbox has been set up to monitor queries from homes and to collect results. Support and guidance is available on how to effectively swab people and on infection control to prevent outbreaks. At this point regular testing is only available for care homes for people over 65 or with dementia. Specialist care homes for people under 65 have received 1 round of whole home testing.

 

Staff from care homes, adult social care, teams across the council and partner organisations have worked really hard together to support residential care throughout the crisis and I’d like to commend their efforts.

 

Of course, we need to be assured that the system is robust enough to cope with a second wave of infections and this will definitely be something that the HOSC focuses on when it scrutinises the health and care system’s recovery and resilience planning in the coming months.

 

 

4.6       Ken Kirk

 

4.6.1   Mr Kirk asked the Does the HOSC share my concern that the government’s Test and Trace system run by Deloitte, see the answer to a parliamentary question, does not require Deloitte to pass positive cases to local authorities. Do you agree that the HOSC should require B&H director of public health to its meeting to ensure scrutiny of his planned response to a possible second Covid wave?

 

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2020-05-19.48980.h

Stella Creasey MP: To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the contract with Deloitte for covid-19 testing requires that company to report positive cases to Public Health England and to local authorities.

Nadine Dorries (Minister of State): As an existing professional services provider to the public sector, Deloitte’s expertise is being used to supplement in-house resource to deliver significant programmes of work, which currently includes the national response to COVID-19. The contract with Deloitte does not require the company to report positive cases to Public Health England and local authorities.

 

4.6.2   The Chair responded:

 

 “Deloitte deliver a contract to national Government to oversee aspects of the Pillar 2 Covid-19 testing programme provided by commercial labs.

Since the beginning of July, Public Health England have provided postcode level data for Pillar 2 cases to Directors of Public Health under a data sharing agreement. This is provided for local analysis under a data sharing agreement.

Contact tracing of these individuals continues to be managed within the NHS Track & Trace system. Where appropriate Public Health England work jointly with the Council on responding to outbreaks. These arrangements are described in our Local Outbreak Plan available at:

https://new.brighton-hove.gov.uk/local-covid-19-outbreak-plan

Until recently data on Pillar 2 cases was not published at nation, region or Local Authority level.  Since the beginning of July, data relating to Pillar 2 cases is now included in the national and local daily dashboards available to the public.

These are available at:

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

https://new.brighton-hove.gov.uk/covid-19-key-statistics-brighton-hove “

 

 We will definitely be looking at local Covid outbreak planning as part of the HOSC’s scrutiny of local health & care system recovery and resilience planning.

 

4.6.3   Mr Kirk asked a supplementary question about how local test & trace service relate to Deloitte. The Chair agreed to provide an answer in writing.