Agenda item

The Leader was pleased to say that this report goes someway to confirming our recovery period and

the way forward.

The Leader introduced the report, the purpose of which was to ensure that Cabinet are aware of the

current situation and to seek endorsement of the approach going forward for the delivery of Contact

Tracing in Gwent.

The Leader introduced the Cabinet Member for Licensing and Regulation to present the report.

The Cabinet Member confirmed the report sets out the work that has been undertaken, to date, to establish a Local Contact Tracing Team in Newport.   The Cabinet Member confirmed that these are just interim arrangements for the first three months, in order to get the service operational in an extremely short timescale.  A future strategy will need to be agreed in conjunction with other partners, to develop a delivery model and governance structure for the longer-term.  Key to this will be the funding that Welsh Government make available to pay for the service, as this cannot be delivered within existing Council resources.

The Cabinet Member went on to say, as everyone will be aware, the Test Trace Protect Strategy is a key element of the Welsh Government route plan for relaxing the Coronavirus lock-down in Wales.  The increased testing and contact tracing will allow identification of who has the virus and who is at risk of having caught it so they can self-isolate and prevent spreading it to others.

The Cabinet Member confirmed that in Wales, councils have been tasked with the responsibility to establish local community contact tracing cells in each of their areas, in partnership with the regional Health Boards, with the contact-tracing being overseen at a national level by Public Health Wales.

Welsh Government published their plan on the 13^th May so there was a very short timescale to set this up and running.  The Cabinet Member paid tribute to the officers for the enormous amount of work that has gone into setting up the Local Contact Tracing Team in Newport.  This required a collective effort across all Council services, to recruit and train staff, set up the equipment, develop temporary databases and put in place interim management arrangements.

The Council’s Environmental Health Officers, due to their experience in dealing with contagious diseases, are leading on this work at both a local and regional level.  The Cabinet Member stressed that this would not have been possible without significant numbers of staff from other services volunteering to carry out this contact tracing work from home, many of whom are currently vulnerable and “shielding”.

Due to the rapid pace of change, there have been significant developments since the report was first drafted, and the Cabinet Member updated Cabinet on progress in the past few weeks:

·         started contact tracing work on 1^st June with 10 contact advisers from Customer Services and five contact tracers from Public Protection, all working from home and using an interim database set up by the Shared Resource Service (SRS). 

·         the new CRM national data base is now on line and operational, but it has meant re-training the staff to use a different IT system. Since then, we’ve had a steady flow of positive cases. 

·         In the first two weeks in June, there were 11 positive cases referred, which generated 54 separate contacts. It is anticipated that the work will increase as restrictions are relaxed and testing is increased.  PHW deal with distribution of the data.

·         On 9^th June, confirmation received from Welsh Government that funding will be made available for the costs of delivering the service from July to the end of March 2021 but no specific amount has been allocated.  Provisional estimates suggest that a workforce of over 400 staff would be required across Gwent at a cost of approximately £13 million. This included six local teams with 70 staff in each and a Regional Overview Team led by Health Board Clinical Leads and Environmental Health Officers. 

·         There is no clear agreement on the future delivery model and governance arrangements.  It was envisaged that the Health Board would employ the staff and manage the service regionally but discussions are now focussing on councils continuing to employ the local contact tracing teams.  In relation to governance, the proposed model envisages a partnership board at the top of the structure, which could include elected members.  But, as indicated earlier, the delivery model is entirely dependent on the available funding.

·         PHW expect the service to run on a 24 hour service 7 days a week. 

In closing the Cabinet Member highlighted the impact that the contact tracing work will have on other regulatory services.  The Council has 17 staff allocated to the interim service and the Environmental Health Officers will continue to have a role at a regional level for the whole of the contact tracing period.  Therefore, other statutory and regulatory services will have to be scaled-back significantly to accommodate the contact tracing work.

The Leader confirmed this is one of the key areas that covers the recovery process and invited

Comments from Cabinet Members:

The Cabinet Members fully supported the service which will help to keep schools open, keep the R rate

low until such time a vaccine/treatment can be identified.  All agreed the staff dealing with this system

are exceptional especially as the ABUHB was the epi-centre for the virus at the start of this pandemic.

Cabinet Members thanked Welsh Government for bearing the cost of this service which was welcomed.

However, with 7 staff having been redeployed is a cost to the Council in respect of retraining and this

needs to be funded.  It was suggested that further conversations are needed with Welsh Government,

PHW, and ABUHB with regards to ongoing funding, office space, etc.  All fully supported this service

which is helping to stop a new wave of covid-19 and all commended the Cabinet Member and staff.   

The Leader thanked colleagues for their comments and invited the Head of Law and Regulation to

comment.  Mr Price confirmed that the Council can’t sustain the redeployment of staff indefinitely and

there will also be issues around governance and the delivery model and if that is affordable; there has to

be a budget which should be at a regional level. 

The Cabinet Member for Licensing and Regulation commended staff for their hard work in getting this

up and running in two and a half weeks and which had been a cross-Council effort.  He confirmed the

need to look at the delivery and funding of the service going forward and asked Cabinet to note the report and endorse the approach taken to establish the service.

The Leader was happy to accept the report as the service is very necessary for recovery going forward.

Decision:

Cabinet voted unanimously and agreed the report.

The Leader closed the meeting and thanked officers for the outstanding work done during this period.

She also thanked Cabinet for their support and gave special thanks to the Deputy Leader.