Coronavirus West Berkshire: Council preparing for test and trace as health board told it should ask 'tough questions'
Local role of 'surveillance and spotting outbreaks'
LOCAL lockdowns could be brought in to parts of West Berkshire experiencing a coronavirus outbreak.
The measures form part of new restrictions surrounding social distancing and roles for councils to contain the spread of Covid-19.
Councils are also preparing to play a part in the Government’s test and trace service, which will ask people to co-ordinate with contact tracers to prevent the virus spreading.
Health leaders in West Berkshire have also been told to ask tough questions of themselves in how they responded to the virus.
Speaking in a virtual meeting, strategic director of public health Tessa Lindfield said: “Clearly this isn’t over yet and we have got some new things coming online that locally we need to get our heads around, not least the new detailed surveillance role that local authorities will have to spot Covid hotspots as they are emerging and with the new test and trace service.”
Mrs Lindfield said that the testing offer had been ramped up in recent weeks, resulting in better data becoming available.
“Once that’s in we can get a much better picture about where cases are,” she said.
“This is all part of our local role now, of surveillance and spotting outbreaks and where small epidemics are bubbling up locally, so we can put local measures in to help manage them.
“I think the local role is increasing not decreasing and there’s a real shift away from a nationally-driven response towards things coming from local and real recognition that there’s real value we can add at a local level.”
Healthwatch West Berkshire chief officer Andrew Sharp praised the community response to the virus and the efforts of key workers, council staff and the voluntary sector.
But he added: “One of the things we can’t get away from is we have some tough questions to ask and some tough questions that the board have got to think about in terms of the speed of its response, how it responded, could it have done some more, because the Covid crisis has affected every single partner here.”
The board heard that the district’s excess deaths – the expected deaths for the time of year compared to a five-year rolling average – had seen a 34-per-cent increase (90).
At the time of the meeting 118 people from West Berkshire had died with Covid-19 recorded on their death certificate, with 60 deaths recorded in care homes.
Highlighting this figure, Mr Sharp said: “The Covid death rate in West Berkshire is higher than Australia.
“It’s concerning that our care home deaths are higher than our acute deaths.
“Hong Kong has had zero care homes deaths.”
He said that the board needed to assess the impact of national policy and local response to see what could have been done differently.
“That in itself is a challenge. The country appears to have been preparing for a flu pandemic, but actually we got hit with a Sars pandemic and that’s had a huge effect in ramping up the acute capacity,” he said.
“I agree that the response from West Berkshire and the community of West Berkshire has been phenomenal, but I think we have to look at some of these tough questions and say ‘could the board have been more helpful’.
“We’ve had various committees not sitting.
“I think there should have been more transparency.
“It became quite clear early on that this was going to affect our frail elderly and not just in hospital, but also in a care home setting.”
Saying the board needed to reflect, Mr Sharp said: “Covid is going to be with us some time.
“There’s a high possibility of a second wave and things we could have done differently or better.
“We have got to make sure we do when and if something similar happens again.”
In response, council leader Lynne Doherty (Con, Speen) said: “I think there is always a time to look at lessons learnt and there is always a time to reflect and build on that, but we are in a very unique situation.
“This is a crisis that nobody foresaw the way it has transpired and we are dealing with the response to the crisis at the same time we are starting to talk recovery.
“There are two dynamics here.
“We are still very much in the middle of dealing with the response to Covid and what that will look like.
“We know we are talking about peaks in the winter, but I think there is always a time to look back and reflect and what we can learn and should have done, but at the moment we are still very much dealing with the response.”
