Issue - meetings

To consider the report of the Managing Director.

Consideration was given to the report of the Managing Director.

At the invitation of the Leader the Chief Officer Commercial presented the report that detailed the arrangements put in place to establish Contact Tracing in Blaenau Gwent, as part of the regional response to the Welsh Government’s Test, Trace and Protect Plan (TTP).

The Officer referred to Section 3 and gave an overview of the roles and responsibilities of the service.  She also provided information on the operational details of the service.

She noted that the initial work would focus on the testing of staff and residents in Care Homes and to date the level of testing has been quite low, however, it was anticipated that figures would rise as lockdown measures were eased; and it was noted that it was likely that the service would continue until March 2021.

The Leader then, in light of the announcement over the last few days that there would be a strong potential that a testing facility would be placed at the Marine Colliery Site in Cwm, and asked that an officer provide a brief statement. 

The Managing Director responded that a request had been made over the last few days, whereby Welsh Government (WG) and the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB) had contacted the Council to source potential sites in the borough for a drive-through testing centre.  The Council had welcomed their interest to have a testing centre in the area, and WG and ABUHB were showed potential sites and Marine Colliery in Cwm was selected, mainly because of its size.  Officers were now working through the plans to make sure the site would be suitable and testing should start next week.   She noted that drive-through centres were part of a National approach to testing, through a national system, and it linked neatly into the work of the local contact tracing, any results would be fed into the team.  This was positive news for Blaenau Gwent and officers had worked at pace over the last few days and expected a formal announcement over the next few days.

The Leader thanked the Chief Officer Commercial and other officers involved for the work they had done on the Test, Trace and Protect project, which would be crucial to the further easing of lockdown measures.

RESOLVED that the report be accepted and the Executive noted and endorsed the establishment of Contact Tracing in Blaenau Gwent, as part of the regional approach in Gwent and in support of the national Test, Trace and Protect Plan. (Option 1)