Future Outbreak Plan Agreed For East Sussex

The first version of a plan on responding to new outbreaks of coronavirus in East Sussex has been agreed.

At a meeting on Tuesday (July 14), the East Sussex Health and Wellbeing Board agreed to formally adopt an Outbreak Control Plan for the county.

The document, which is required by government, lays out how local councils and health authorities in the county will monitor, prevent and respond to outbreaks of Covid-19.

It is intended to undergo further changes over the coming months to reflect new guidance (and potentially new legislation) from government.

The full Outbreak Control Plan lays out information on the local population and geography, as well as the principles of investigating and responding to potential outbreaks of Covid-19. 

However, the plan also makes it clear that all lockdown measures flow from national rules and legislation, so that any localised lockdown would require further measures from government.

Some concerns were raised about the quality of the available testing data from government.

Previously local authorities only had access to pillar 1 testing data – i.e. testing data conducted through the NHS and Public Health England (PHE) – not pillar 2 testing data, which is made up of confirmed cases resulting from postal tests and testing sites run by the Department of Health and Social Care.

While local councils now have access to pillar 2 data, officers said, it had not included some broader information about those tested.

This saw concerns raised by Cllr Zoe Nicholson, leader of Lewes District Council, about the recording of the impact on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people living in the county.

She said:

“I rather hope I have misunderstood this because if not it is a bit of a big issue.

“Am I right in understanding that the report says there is no ethnicity data collection on pillar 2 testing? If that is the case then for the BAME community we are flying blind.

“That feels like a very scary place for us to operate from, especially when the report talks about 50 per cent of our healthcare workforce [being] from the BAME community. 

“I am imagining that is particularly relevant in some of the bigger hospitals and obviously will be in Hastings.”

The initial lack of pillar 2 data had also somewhat skewed reports of infection rates in Hastings, which at one point was ranked as the 314 lowest out of 316 local authority areas.

Even with the inclusion of pillar 2 data remains one of the lowest areas of infection in the country, however. The reasons for this low rate of infection are not yet understood but was being investigated, officers said.

Cllr Paul Barnett, of Hastings Borough Council, said:

“I’m pleased that you are looking at the Hastings picture, because I am sure that the headline of low infection rates and low deaths masks many other issues. 

“It is much more complex than that. It is not because there is a great wall round the town, as some people would like to think. One of the points, which Zoe touched on, is that question of access to healthcare. Not just testing. 

“If people have a lack of confidence in their primary healthcare then they are less likely to come forward with a whole range of health issues. I think that is playing out in Hastings at the moment.”

The East Sussex Health and Wellbeing Board is made up of representatives of several local authorities and health bodies.

It is an unusual council committee because officers vote alongside councillors and other local representatives.

By Huw Oxburgh - Local Democracy Reporter