Agenda item

To consider the report of the Chief Officer Commercial.

The Council considered the report of the Chief Officer Commercial.

At the invitation of the Chair, the Chief Officer Commercial gave details of the report the purpose of which was to establish a Blaenau Gwent Contact Tracing Service.

The Chief Officer Commercial explained that on 13^th May Welsh Government had published their Test, Trace and Protect overarching plan which was supported by Public Health Wales Public Health Protection Response Plan which had been designed to support the move out of lockdown. As part of the Welsh Government Plan each region was required to develop its own regional regular response to the Plan and a Gwent wide service commenced on 1^st June, 2020.

In order to achieve this, some staff were redeployed into the service to undertake contact tracing and contact advising.  This was not sustainable arrangement beyond September and authorities had been asked to established a permanent arrangement from September 2020 to March 2021.  The Gwent Co-ordinating Group had subsequently submitted a business case to Welsh Government which had resulted in £9.6m being awarded across Gwent to establish the service.

The model for the GCTS was based on an integrated model whereby the Local Authorities took the lead responsibility for their respective local teams and Aneurin Bevan University Health Board (ABUHB) would take lead responsibility for the Regional response.

The Chief Officer Commercial continued by providing details of the model and explained that staff would be specifically employed directly to resource the team in Blaenau Gwent and would work remotely from home to deliver the service.  Based on the interim solution it was proposed to create a team in line with other Gwent models a service consists of i.e. Service Team Manager, Contact Tracers and Advisers, Shift Co-ordinators providing an 8.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m., 7-day service.

The number of staff required was based on the population of Blaenau Gwent and the potential positivity rate i.e. 20% tests would be positive. Appendix 1 provided details of the governance arrangements and the team would report directly into the Strategic Co-ordinating Group as part of response to Covid-19 and a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which included the Health Board and local authorities in Gwent was currently in development. 

It was, therefore, proposed that the Chief Officer Commercial be provided with delegated authority to sign off the MOU in consultation with the Executive Member.

RESOLVED accordingly.

The Chief Officer Commercial concluded by advising that the performance management of new service would be in line with the Council’s regular performance management arrangements.

In reply to a question, the Chief Officer Commercial confirmed that officers employed within this service would be provided with the offer of support such as counselling.  In addition, at the beginning and end of every shift there would be a briefing and de-brief respectively.  The Council had an employee assistance programme for those officers who had particular welfare issues and needed to speak to someone outside of the team and these team members would be fast tracked to receive that support, if required.

The Leader of the Council expressed his appreciation to the Chief Officer Commercial for the incredible amount of work that had been undertaken not only in Blaenau Gwent but across the region to provide this service.  He proposed that Option 1 be endorsed.  This proposal was seconded.

The Leader of the Labour Group commended the report.

It was unanimously,

FURTHER RESOLVED, subject to the foregoing, that the report be accepted and Option 1 be endorsed, namely that the proposals for the establishment of the local authority Contact Tracing Team, as part of the Gwent regional service be agreed.