The Prime Minister has this week, on his return to full-time work after contracting COVID-19, said the country is ‘turning the tide’ against the coronavirus and preparations to enter a second phase of the nation’s response are underway.
To date we in local government, along with our colleagues across the public sector, have all been focused on the incredibly important goals of saving lives and stopping the NHS from becoming overwhelmed. To prevent a second spike when lockdown restrictions start to be lifted, we will need to maintain this collective effort.
The health and social care secretary recently announced people who become unwell will be able to notify a new NHS contact tracing app, which is still being developed, which will then inform other users who that person has had significant contact with. In addition, there are plans to use 3,000 health professionals to make tracing calls to those testing positive, while 15,000 call handlers will follow up with individuals who have come in to contact with people contracting COVID-19.
It is an ambitious project, which the Government is proposing to run as a national programme.
While it is not yet clear what the sector’s role will be, Public Health England (PHE) has engaged councils on this matter through Solace, the Local Government Association and the Association of Directors of Public Health, and we have been making the case that it is crucial PHE work closely with councils to ensure this national system is properly connected to local areas.
As part of the wider coronavirus response, local authorities has been working with all of our partners right across the public, private and voluntary sectors. This coordinated local and regional response has enabled us to work together to free up more than 30,000 hospital beds, house 5,400 rough sleepers and process more than £6bn in grants for businesses, to name just a few of the many achievements to date.
The sector is already showing what it can do and I have no doubt that, with the right involvement from local government, a contact tracing system can be a success too.
As part of this, we would need to ensure a robust testing regime which connects local areas to different parts of the country, supported by quality data and modelling, so we can carefully monitor, mitigate and prevent the spread of infection. Our public health and environmental health teams in particular have the necessary knowledge, skills and expertise to help ensure such a system runs effectively and efficiently – they are used to tracking and tracing outbreaks of disease, albeit never on such a large scale.
We would also need to make sure key messaging is communicated to all of the residents we serve and councils by their very nature are best-placed to help with that. This is particularly the case if we move in due course to varied messaging for different parts of the country as part of the longer-term recovery.
While the extra £3.2bn made available to councils to respond to the coronavirus has been welcomed, there are unquestionably greater financial pressures local authorities are facing and we have been clear that any further increase in demand on existing services, which are already stretched, must be met with additional resources and funding.
The professional response to the coronavirus crisis to date has been nothing short of incredible. But we all need to remember that this global pandemic cannot be tackled by any one organisation or entity. If we are to return to a new normal anytime soon then this will require a national and local effort – and local government, as ever, stands ready to help.
Paul Najsarek is Solace spokesperson for community wellbeing, and chief executive, Ealing LBC