The Chairman welcomed all those present to the meeting and invited all attendees to introduce themselves.

There were no declarations of disclosable pecuniary interests and personal or personal and prejudicial interests.

Resolved - That the minutes of the meeting of the Health and Wellbeing Board, held on 21 December 2020, be approved as a correct record.

Update on the NHS Phase 3 Recovery Plan by the Chief Operating Officer, North Lincolnshire CCG

The Director: Governance and Partnerships confirmed that the Forward Plan was up to date, and that all forthcoming actions were timetabled. 

Resolved – That the situation be noted.  

There were no questions from members of the public.

Report and Presentation by the Deputy Chief Executive and the Director of Public Health.

           The Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Director: Commercial, and the Director of Public Health submitted a report and presentation on progress against eachof theseven themes in the NorthLincolnshire Outbreak Prevention& ManagementPlan.  This included key areas of focus forthe outbreakpreventionandmanagement in North Lincolnshirefor theforthcomingperiod, and an outline of North Lincolnshire’s position in relation to risk alert level and local restrictions.

On 23 November 2020 Government published the COVID-19 Winter Plan. This plan set out the programme for suppressing the virus, protecting the NHS and the vulnerable, keeping education and the economy going and providing a route back to normality. The Government’s objectives were to: 

·         Supress the virus – bring the R number below 1 and keep it there. Measures included the use of restrictions.

·         Finding new and more effective ways of managing the virus and enabling life to return closer to normal. This included: 

o   Vaccines – following approval of the Pfizer BionNTech vaccine a UK wide vaccination programme commenced on 8 December 2020. 

o   Treatment – effective treatments would continue to be vital to manage the virus even as vaccines are rolled out 

o   Mass community testing – strengthened targeted community testing would support the identification and isolation of people who do not have symptoms but are unintentionally spreading the virus. 

·         Minimise damage to the economy and society, jobs and livelihoods. This meant ensuring the right support is available for jobs and that early year's settings, schools, further education providers and universities continued their excellent work in ensuring a safe environment for students to learn. 

A detailed presentation was then delivered on the epidemiological situation in North Lincolnshire.  This included the total number of cases, the current tier, the current R Value, and the rolling 7-Day Case Rate.

Resolved - That the Health and Wellbeing Board note the presentation and the Outbreak Prevention and Management Update.

Report by the Chief Operating Officer, NLCCG. 

            The Chief Operating Officer, North Lincolnshire CCG, submitted a report updating the Health and Wellbeing Board on the latest position of the Covid-19 Vaccination Programme.  The report covered the phase 1 model of the programme including the early priority cohorts and how they would be managed.

The Chief Operating Officer confirmed that the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine had been approved in December 20 and that national criteria had been released on the priority cohorts to receive the vaccine.  The CCG had been asked to work with local Primary Care Networks to identify designated sites for the delivery of the vaccine. The vaccine delivery commenced at the Wave One site, the Ironstone Centre on behalf of South Network, on 15 December 2020 in the initial target cohort population of the > 80 year olds.

There were four designated sites in operation in North Lincolnshire within the four Primary Care Networks:

·         The Ironstone Centre, Scunthorpe (South Network)

·         Riverside Practice, Brigg (East Network)

·         Pinfold Surgery, Owston Ferry (West Network)

·         Central Surgery, Barton (North Network)

Each of the networks were now actively delivering vaccination programmes and, due to subcontracting arrangements in place, can work together between each individual practice in North Lincolnshire and each of the designated sites so that each site can vaccinate any patient from any practice to provide better coverage and access.

The priority cohorts that the designated sites had been asked to focus on were the > 80 year olds, older adults’ resident in a care home, and care home workers and health and social care workers.

The Board discussed the report further, highlighting the need for consistent, effective communications.  It was acknowledged that North Lincolnshire’s performance was amongst the best in the country and the whole Health and Wellbeing Board wished to record their appreciation to those involved, particularly the front-line staff, for their efforts

Resolved - That the Health and Wellbeing Board note the contents of the Vaccination Programme report.

Report by the Director: Children and Community Resilience (If any).

The Director: Children and Community Resilience confirmed that all work related to the Health and Wellbeing Board was up to date.

Resolved - That the situation be noted.

Report by the Director: Adults and Community Wellbeing (If any)

The Director: Adults and Community Wellbeing confirmed that all work related to the Health and Wellbeing Board was up to date.

Resolved - That the situation be noted.

Report by the Director: Adults and Community Wellbeing

            The Safeguarding Adults Board: Independent Chair submitted the statutory Annual Report, requesting that the Health and Wellbeing Board note its publication and receive an outline of the Safeguarding Adults Board’s work and how its members carry out and deliver the objectives of the strategic plan.

The LSAB Manager explained that the contents of the report should be considered in relation to planning, commissioning and budget setting, and gave a detailed presentation on how the report demonstrates that the LSAB:

·                     listened and responded to the voices of adults with care and support needs, and adults with the lived experience,

·                     was effective in providing help and protection to adults with care and            support needs,

·                     effectively met statutory obligations,

·                     benefitted from strong and consistent leadership,

·                     had made good progress on delivering the strategic objectives laid out within the strategic plan.

The Chairman and other Board members acknowledged the excellent work that had been achieved, and committed to ensuring that safeguarding would remain the highest priority within North Lincolnshire.

Resolved – (a) That the LSAB Annual Report 2019/20 be received and consideration be given where relevant in relation to planning, commissioning and budgets setting processes, and (b) that the Board note submission of the report to the following below via board members to consider the contents of the report and how they can improve their contributions to both safeguarding throughout their own organisation and to the joint work of the board -

·                     Leader and Chief Executive of the Council

·                     Police & Crime Commissioner and Chief Constable of Humberside Police

·                     Healthwatch

Report by the Chief Operating Officer, NLCCG. 

            The Chief Operating Officer submitted a report providing the Health and Wellbeing Board with an overview of the current resilience and escalation processes to support delivery through the Covid pandemic.  The paper also set out the current plans regarding Covid vaccination and maintenance of non-Covid care to the North Lincolnshire population.

The Chief Operating Officer explained that The North Lincolnshire Health and Care system had established processes for monitoring the resilience of the system, underpinned by an escalation framework; OPEL (Operational Pressures Escalation Levels Framework). This was a standard framework used across the country and enables regional and national assessment of health and care system pressures.

These processes and framework enabled the system to assess, monitor and report service and demand pressures in a systematic way. The framework articulated the actions each organisation should take at each level in order to manage the system pressure. As a result, a significant rise in pressure within one organisation would result in a response across all organisations in support.

The report described reporting and monitoring arrangements, the operation and agreement of the annual ‘Surge Plan’, and additional measures being undertaken to support care homes within North Lincolnshire. 

The report also highlighted the following national priorities for the remainder of 2020/21;

·         Responding to Covid-19 demand

·         Implementation of the Covid-19 vaccination programme

·         Maximising capacity in all settings to treat non-Covid-19 patients

·         Responding to other emergency demand and managing winter pressures

·         Supporting the health and wellbeing of our workforce

and discussed how the North Lincolnshire system was already progressing all of these priorities, along with local priorities, such as tackling health inequalities.

Resolved – That the Health and Wellbeing Board note and support the ongoing escalation and recovery work described in the report.

Verbal update.

Board members described their responses to the consultation and discussed the potential implications of any changes to the current arrangements.

Resolved – (a) That the situation be noted, and (b) that the Board maintain an oversight of this issue.

The Chairman confirmed that the next Board meeting was on 22 February at 9am, to be conducted via MS Teams. 

There were no urgent items to be discussed.