Agenda item

The Board considered the report of the Chief Executive, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust that provided Members with an update on the Health and Care System Winter Plan 2020/21 (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Chief Executive was in attendance to present the report and advised the Board that the plan was based on the individual plans of the constituent organisations with a view to restoring services that were paused in the first wave of COVID-19, managing winter pressures and managing second and any subsequent waves of COVID-19 and ensure they had consistent arrangements for escalation across all agencies that would deal with any local outbreaks.

The plan was consistent and formed a major plan of the work undertaken by the Local Resilience Forum across County Durham and Darlington. The plan was dynamic and incorporated new advice and guidance as and when it was received nationally.

The COVID vaccine was not included in the plan but was incorporated into the live document.

The Board were provided with details of the ‘Talk Before You Walk’ initiative that had recently launched and the key objectives of the plan.

There were four main initiatives as part of the plan that were optimising capacity; optimising uptake of flu vaccination, a task and finish group and a myriad of support packages and services in place.

This year was very different due to COVID-19 and a lot of the risks would be amplified and the Board were provided with details of the key risks.

Councillor Gunn indicated that frontline services and NHS Trusts were under enormous stress and strain in dealing with the pressures and that their work was appreciated. She was delighted to see that workforce mental health was included in the plan, and she asked if ‘Talk Before You Walk’ was impacting on emergency departments and if people were using the appropriate service and taking the advice.

The Chief Executive responded that the initiative was running right across the North East and North Cumbria but had just recently been rolled out in County Durham and Darlington. There were a number of communication campaigns asking the public to think and to consider the alternatives before they presented at A&E or Urgent Care. Currently there was no tangible difference in numbers, but they hoped by working with the public, providing the alternatives available to make clearer the options they had that this would relieve some of the pressure from hospitals. She would update the Board at the next meeting when the initiative had had chance to take hold in our area.

Dr Stewart Findlay commented that it was early days for the ‘Talk Before You Walk’ initiative but they did know that a number of people use the A&E that could be better dealt with by a GP or local Pharmacists. If people go to A&E and there were better places for them they would advise them of the alternatives. A number of people were not aware of the alternatives available to them and were pleased to use one of the alternatives rather than go directly in A&E. A lot of education and information needed to get out to the public and ensure that when people did go into A&E and would be better dealt with by another service, they were offered alternatives so that in future they would use the service in a more appropriate way.

Resolved: (i) That the Board received the plan for assurance that a System Winter Plan had been put in place to protect services over the winter period and that there was robust daily oversight.

(ii) That the increased levels of risk in relation to the winter period, given the combination of winter pressures and COVID be noted.

(iii) That the work was still ongoing to agree mutual aid responses across the North East and Cumbria Integrated Care Systems and Local A&E Delivery Board partner continued to be rapidly responding to new guidance being released be noted.