Agenda item

Members received a presentation from the Director of Public Health, Dr Rupert Suckling, which gave an overview regarding the current situation in terms of Covid-19, and the impact it has had on the communities in Doncaster and the actions being taken to address it.

The past twelve months in Doncaster had been without doubt tumultuous, starting with the floods in November, followed then by the emergence of the Covid1-19 Pandemic in the New Year. Following the World Health Organisation’s announcement of the virus at the end of 2019 when it first emerged in Wuhan, China, it was not until February 2020, that it became a much greater concern in the UK, with cases quickly escalating in number, leading to the National Lockdown of the country on 23 March 2020.  A Pandemic Plan had been quickly activated to react to the virus, and following the lockdown, people across Doncaster began new ways of working, with all services being offered and accessed very differently to enable people to stay home and stay safe.

The Fight Back Fund was introduced, which looked to provide grants to these struggling across the Borough and new structures were quickly put into place across the Authority with the Civil Contingency Plan activated in order to allow the majority of all decision making to be made by the Chief Executive.

In September 2020, the Covid-19 Engagement Board as established that looked to engage with different partners working to support all communities across the Borough as well as engaging with the public to ensure they were kept abreast of activity.

The Board noted that the lockdown had appeared to have had an effect with numbers falling since the peak in April, when at its height, there were 100 people in Acute Care and 7 people in ICU. There had been careful monitoring of activity in care homes and prisons and whilst in April there had been 20 care homes all with cases in, now this was considerably calmer. In fact, Dr suckling reported, that even since lockdown restrictions had eased numbers of cases across the borough had continued to fall and as of the meetings date, there had been a month with no deaths in Doncaster, of which so far there had been 278.

The outlook in Doncaster was at the current point was positive, and whilst it as anticipated it would get worse throughout the winter when various respiratory illnesses traditionally struck, it was hopeful that it would remain under control.

Many additional concerns had arisen because of Covid-19 and the associated lockdown with the following highlighted as concerns: -

·         Concerns surrounding mental health as a result of stress and isolation

·         The cancellation of a large amount of hospital appointments, screenings and appointments

·         Direct impacts of the virus on various groups as a result of issues such as gender, race and deprivation

However, despite concerns there had also been positive points to draw from the last 6 months and which would be pushed further moving forward: -

·         GPs doing video and telephone calls, providing greater accessibility

·         More services provided to the home where needed

·         Doncaster had managed the pandemic in the Borough well, and whilst it had not disappeared, it was being well managed

·         Good relationships had been formed across all partner agencies to work well together

·         The community effort was huge, with many vulnerable and isolated individuals receiving great support and help form their local communities

Members of the Board noted he presentation and were invited to make any comments. There was consensus across the Board that in these unprecedented times, it was testament to the key workers, Elected Members, and members of the public across all communities of the Borough how far the tow had come in such a short space of time and had responded well to the challenge.

Testing, it was noted, continued to be one of the biggest challenges faced, but there was capacity, with sites at Doncaster Airport and Dearne Valley and it was hoped that this would improve further as time went on with the introduction of new faster testing.

Members acknowledged the challenges ahead as they moved into the Winter and with schools going back, there could be additional problems with mental health as a result of the social isolation that had been experienced over the past 6 months and it was expected that the demand on mental health services would be one of the greatest moving forward.

RESOLVED that the Board note the presentation by the Director of Public Health.