Agenda item

14:05

To present on the latest situation from the system partners.

Slides on vaccination and health & care are included in the main agenda pack.  The latest information on Covid epidemiology will be published shortly before the meeting as an Addendum.

A presentation updating on the vaccination programme and Health & Care had been circulated in the Agenda and further slides with the latest Covid-19 case rates had been circulated on the eve of the meeting.

Ansaf Azhar, Corporate Director for Public Health, noted how case rates were higher than one year ago during the lockdown.  However, the difference was the successful vaccination programme which greatly reduced the proportion of cases requiring hospital treatment.  The future for case rates remained uncertain and continued vigilance and precautions against infection were still required.  There was more focus now on the Health and Care system as more people were dying of other causes than Covid.

Asked if a spike in RSV (Respiratory syncytial virus) cases indicated that there could be a problem this winter, Ansaf Azhar responded that it was too early to say.  The precautions that people take against Covid will reduce the chances of other infections as well.

Lily O’Connor, Deputy Director of Urgent Care, Oxford University Hospitals (OUH), presented the slides on Health and Care.

Councillor Liz Brighouse noted the high rates of eating disorders and self-harm among children and young people.  She believed this was linked to the problems in responding to child and mental health needs and would like to see these issues brought together in a piece of work.  Otherwise, there was a danger we would fail our young people.

Lily O’Connor responded that eating disorders were a problem across the county and there was a need to identify cases earlier.  They were working with schools on this.  People who self-harm were only admitted to secondary care in the case of significant overdoses requiring treatment.  OUH worked very closely with Oxford Health and CAMHS Crisis and tried to get patients out of acute hospital as soon as possible.

Diane Hedges, Deputy Chief Executive, OCCG, presented the slides on elective care.  She noted that the Chief Executives across the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care System (BOB ICS) had agreed to work to open all specialities to referral so that the emerging waiting lists numbers could be seen and patient risk managed.  The reopening needed to be achieved through collaboration across the BOB ICS.  There were processes to be gone through to achieve that and she did not have a date yet as to when the remaining services would reopen.  The plan required the system to balance waiting lists with Buckinghamshire and Berkshire West with a single point of entry to manage patients. This meant that although referred into the system, the patient would not always be able to have their appointment with the Oxfordshire provider as the waiting times needed to be balanced.

Members raised issues and officers responded as follows:

·         The staff shortages were largely related to Covid – household contacts, sickness from Covid and children being off school needing parental care were all factors.

·         The increase in evening referrals may be related to people who have contacted 999 earlier in the day but their condition was not as acute as others, so they were not brought in until evening.

Ansaf Azhar presented slides on vaccinations including the booster programme.  He particularly noted how the vaccination roll-out to 16 and 17 year olds had really brought down the case rates in that age group and he congratulated the team on this work.

The programme with 12 to 15 year olds was challenging but the evidence was clear and the need to reduce the loss of school time was important.

The Chair concluded by reiterating the thanks to everyone in the health and care services including volunteers.