Agenda item

To consider a report by the Director of Public Health.

The Board considered an update on the Business Plan which provided for:-

·                  COVID-19 outbreak management and response;

·                  Wider System working (prevention and inequalities – with Integrated Care

System);

·                  Public health programmes – our services and delivery;

·                  Our organisation including supporting functions.

The Plan showed what was being done, how it was being done and what was being achieved by Public Health Dorset in meeting its obligations and commitments to public health.

Given the ongoing commitment to addressing COVID-19 and especially the recent omicron issues, a significant impact had been seen on the ability of Public Health Dorset to maintain its routine public health work. In addition, the prevention and inequalities work had been delayed because of the national timescales for the ICS launch being put back to July 2022.

Given this, agreement was being sought for an extension to developing a detailed monitoring plan, recognising that there had not been the capacity to undertake the necessary work.

The development of new programmes for 22-23 would form a substantial part of the plan, subject to agreement following confirmation of the budget, prioritisation and allocation of team capacity.

Risks and challenges to developing the plan - not least that the majority of the public health team still being deployed in responding to the pandemic – had made it challenging to return to business as usual activities. Given this, agreement was being sought for a pause in the process – under the circumstances - so as to be able to manage the plan in a meaningful, flexible and considered way to ensure its objectives could still be met.

The Board recognised the challenges being faced and acknowledged the need for the pause to allow the means of catching up on all that was necessary. They hoped that whatever progress could be made would be made though so that the pause might be able to be restarted as soon as practical.

Resolved

That the Board endorse the following recommendations:

1) Support giving further time to developing a detailed monitoring plan for the high level business plan agreed with the board in May 2021, recognising that there is still considerable uncertainty about current responsibilities in relation to COVID-19 local outbreak response, and the delay to the Integrated Care System.

2) Continue to endorse the organisation of our work into the four categories of:

a) COVID-19 outbreak management and response;

b) Wider System working (prevention and inequalities – with Integrated Care System);

c) Public health programmes;

d) Our organisation.

3) Support the high level emerging priorities for 22-23 that are starting to emerge as we start to recover from the pandemic and prepare for the ICS going live in July 2022.

Reason for Decision

Since the last Board in November 2021 the public health team has been going through it’s busiest time in response to the Omicron wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The volume of incidents and outbreaks that have required input from the team has been higher than at any time previously. This is due to a combination of ongoing high infection rates in the community, increased volume of supporting work on vaccination and inequalities, plus picking up more responsibility for local health protection and leading incident management team meetings as UK Health Security Agency has come under more and more pressure.