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Agenda item

System-wide update on Covid-19

10:25

 

A presentation to update on the key issues for the Oxfordshire system on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Minutes:

The Committee had asked for a presentation on the latest data on Covid-19, vaccinations and elective recovery plans.  Ansaf Azhar, Director for Public Health, started a presentation with the very latest figures on case rates.  These had been rising in Oxfordshire, standing at 61 per 100,000 up 50% on the previous week.  Cases among over 60s were not high.  The main increase was in the 20-29 age group.

 

The Delta variant was more transmissible but thanks to the vaccination programme the increases were not as serious as they had been in December and January.  He stressed the importance of asymptomatic testing which had picked up 151 cases in the previous week.

 

Hospital admissions were still low.  Vaccination with two doses had been shown to be 80% effective against infection and 98% effective against hospital admission.  Oxfordshire had seen no deaths from Covid-19 for 5 weeks but sadly two had been reported in the previous week.

 

Jo Cogswell, Director for Transformation, Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (OCCG), presented the slide summarising the uptake of vaccine in the various age groups.  It was now being offered to everybody over 18.  They were looking at how to make vaccination more accessible for young people and setting up centres in places with greater concentrations of young people.

 

Jo Cogswell encouraged Members to be part of the communications push by encouraging everyone to get the vaccine.  Thousands of volunteers had been an essential part of the programme and a thank-you event had been organised for them.

 

Tehmeena Ajmal, Operations Director Covid, Oxford Health, outlined measures to improve the uptake of the vaccine in areas where it had been low to date, including the use of sprinter vans.  She thanked the universities for their cooperation.  The target was to have the second dose delivered to two-thirds of adults by 19 July when the Government planned to ease restrictions.

 

Councillor Charlie Hicks asked for more comparative information on hospitalisation rates and on hesitancy to take up the vaccine.  He believed that the messaging around the importance of fresh air to minimize airborne transmission was not really getting across.  He had not seen much messaging on vaccination in social media and asked what was being done there.

 

City Councillor Jabu Nala-Hartley asked if partners were aware of the work being done to encourage vaccine take-up in BAME (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic) communities.  She asked for more information on staffing levels, if there were any compliance problems with national and privately run track and trace companies and if employers were doing enough to support their employees.

 

Ansaf Azhar responded that the take-up had been low nationally among young women due to inaccurate information about fertility concerns but they had overcome that with targeted communications.

 

Jo Cogswell noted that they had updated the information campaign to include the importance of fresh air.  They had also improved the messaging to BAME communities following feedback that previous campaigns had been received negatively.  It was now focussed more on the positive messages around the vaccine and used trusted advisors

 

District Councillor Andy Foulsham referred to anecdotal evidence of serious disruption in schools with so many year groups having to isolate.  He asked if local partners were prepared to divert from national guidelines to introduce stronger guidance as otherwise he believed that schools may move to take their own measures.  The Chair asked if the threshold for intervening with schools had changed.

 

Ansaf Azhar responded that the infection rate in school-going ages was much lower than that of the 20-29 age groups.  They were in constant contact with Headteachers and had clear risk assessment processes.

 

Barbara Shaw stressed the importance of data on long-Covid and the impact of that on the health system.  She also asked about communications on the recommended twice-weekly Lateral Flow Tests (LFT) as she believed that the message was not really getting across to the public.

 

Ansaf Azhar agreed that long-Covid was having an impact on primary care but that it was not very well understood yet so it was difficult to devise measures.  He acknowledged that messaging on LFT was difficult due to the perception that it was not very accurate.  He stated that the accuracy was improving and that it remained an important element in limiting transmission.

 

Councillor Freddie van Mierlo noted that a lot of the effort seemed to be focussed on the city, whereas some of the highest rates were in the south of the county where residents looked to Reading as their main centre.

 

Officers responded that the latest data was discussed on a daily basis.  The current priority was towards 18-29 year-olds and those groups were most concentrated in the city.  However, there were mobile units that could be deployed anywhere that hotspots were identified.

 

With regard to the test and trace systems, Ansaf Azhar reported that around 90% of cases were handled by the national system and the local system picked up the rest.  There was soon to be an integrated system so that the local system could access the national data directly.

 

Lisa Glynn, Director of Clinical Services, Oxford University Hospitals, presented slides on elective care.  For most of the period, the numbers waiting more than 52 weeks were reducing ahead of the plan.  However, this changed through December and January as that peak took hold and elective care ceased.  Since April the numbers had started coming down again – the latest count being 3,300.

 

The waiting lists were being managed through clinical prioritization, extending working days, collaborating with independent partners and more treatment in the community.  Lisa Glynn then gave an overview of the NHS Operating and Planning Guidelines that were introduced in March 2021 and included targets for activity that were mostly being met or exceeded.

 

Members noted that Ophthalmic and ENT (Ear, Nose, Throat) services were still closed in Oxfordshire while they were operating, and taking Oxfordshire referrals, in neighbouring counties.  At the Committee’s last meeting there had been a request for information on the plan to reopen these services but this had not been included in the presentation.

 

Lisa Glynn responded that the services were reviewed every two weeks.  As part of that they were able to recommend re-opening of Ophthalmic services except for the cataract pathway.  The review groups included colleagues from OCCG and clinicians from neighbouring trusts who looked at what was working well elsewhere.

 

It was agreed that further questions should be sent to the Committee Secretary for response after the meeting.

 

Supporting documents:

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