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Dear Colleague,
Please find the latest COVID-19 communications update from me below, followed by our Deputy Chief Executive, Sarah Pickup’s bulletin.
Kind regards,
David
David Holdstock
Director of Communications
Local Government Association
@Davidhold |
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Local lockdowns – Local travel communications resources
To support councils in areas where local lockdowns are agreed, the Department for Transport has created a number of resources to support local messaging around what this means for those travelling in affected areas. These include guidance on the safe use of public transport, cycling, walking and driving.
From the LGA's Deputy Chief Executive
Dear Colleague,
I hope you had an enjoyable weekend.
Late on Friday the Government announced £588 million funding to support people needing additional follow-on care after they have been discharged from hospital. This funding – on top of existing council and clinical commissioning group funds – is part of updated guidance about hospital discharge. It will help to cover the costs of health or social care, up to a maximum of six weeks while assessments for long-term care are carried out.
The guidance takes effect from 1 September and embeds the policy of Home First, which expects that virtually all people being discharged should be going home. We have compiled a short briefing explaining the changes. The guidance also encourages local systems to apply the model on discharge and crisis care described in a statement we published recently with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS). This proposes the additional funding should support increasing home-based care and support, in particular reablement.
The guidance also advises that the Government has decided that Care Act and Continuing Healthcare assessments should recommence from 1 September. Any assessments that have been deferred since the suspension of normal rules on 19 March are expected to be undertaken as soon as practically possible, with existing care funded from emergency COVID-19 funding until these assessments are carried out. In non-COVID news, pay deals have today been finalised for employees covered by the local government services National Joint Council 'Green Book'; Chief Executives; and Chief Officers. Unfortunately, the two unions representing local authority Craftworkers (Unite and GMB) have rejected the National Employers' final offer, so their pay deal remains unresolved at this time.
Schools
The Prime Minister has today kicked-off a week long government drive to get every child in England back to school as they begin to reopen in the coming days and weeks with a direct appeal to parents to return their children to the classroom next week. I know that you have been working closely with your local schools and partners to ensure that vulnerable children and families could attend school during the lockdown period, and that classrooms are safe for children to return in greater numbers from September. To reassure families and staff ahead of the next phase, the chief medical officers from the four nations put out a statement explaining the risk and benefits to health from schools and childcare settings, confirming that the risk of contracting COVID-19 in these settings is very small.
While the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Chris Whitty acknowledged that reopening schools will "put pressure" on the R number, new research from Public Health England suggests that children are more likely to catch COVID-19 at home than at school. PHE found that only 200 children and staff were affected by COVID-19 over June and July, despite the number of pupils increasing in schools from 475,000 to 1,646,000. It will be important for the Government and PHE to continue to monitor this situation as schools reopen. You may have also seen calls from the National Education Union for the Government to have a "plan B" in the instance of new spikes of COVID-19 cases in schools. Unison has also called for teaching staff to be allowed to wear face coverings to protect them from COVID-19.
Modern slavery risks for care workers
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed a significant strain on the care sector and there is increasing concern that there may be increasing risk of modern slavery in the recruitment of care workers. Risk factors include the shift to recruit online, rather than face-to-face, which may disguise the signals for which staff are trained to look. Nottingham Rights Lab, who work closely with the LGA have published a research briefing with some practical recommendations for local authority commissioners.
Testing
The Health and Social Care Secretary, Matt Hancock, has suggested that up to four million people could be tested every day for COVID-19 by early next year under new plans to further ease restrictions and boost the economy. Matt Hancock has contracted Deloitte as consultants to develop a mass testing regime which would allow ministers and councils to see exactly where outbreaks are and stop infected people unknowingly spreading it.
The Deputy Director of the National Testing Programme, Catherine Davies, has written to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) about their campaign to promote weekend testing in care homes. At present there is excess demand for testing during the week, which labs are struggling to cope with, yet they are under-utilised at the weekends. You may be interested in a series of webinars being hosted by DHSC for DPH's, DASS's and their teams to explain the weekend campaign. These will take place tomorrow and on Wednesday (25 August and 26 August) at 10am.
Local restrictions
The increasing reports of illegal raves being held across the country, putting people’s health at risk despite efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19, will be a concern to you all. The Prime Minister announced that there will be a new criminal offence for people organising or facilitating unlawful gatherings, with fines of up to £10,000 to be issued. They will come into force on Friday 28 August 2020, ahead of the August bank holiday weekend.
Please join us tomorrow at 10.30am-12pm for the 'Data for local outbreak planning: now and looking ahead' webinar. This webinar focuses on data provision to local authorities and how this can support local systems in responding to local outbreaks. It will explore the different sources, uses and quality of the available data, with speakers including Clare Gardiner, Director General at the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) and from the Department of Health and Social Care and Professor Isabel Oliver, Director of National Infection Service, PHE.
Dental health
As part of our efforts to promote the importance of public health, we have been highlighting in the national media over the weekend how hospitals in England carried out almost 180 operations every day on under-18s last year to remove rotting teeth, costing the NHS £41.5 million. We warned that the lockdown could drive up tooth decay as children have more sugary foods and drinks and community oral health programmes are interrupted, and we urged the Government to fully fund councils' prevention efforts and reverse a £700 million funding reduction to councils' public health grant.
Language skills
The Department for Education announced up to £9 million funding for an early years 'catch up' programme focused on raising the outcomes in speaking and language skills among young pupils whose education has been disrupted by COVID-19. The programme will provide schools with training and resources to help deliver one-to-one and small-group support for five-year-olds whose spoken language skills may have suffered as a result of the pandemic.
Public transport
You may find a new guide published by the Department for Transport (DfT) useful. This aims to help transport organisations in England understand how to provider safer workplaces and services for themselves, their workers and passengers. DfT have also written a joint-letter with the Health and Safety Executive to provide guidance on access to hygiene facilities for drivers.
As the Government announces more localised restrictions across the country, DfT has created a number of communications materials to support stakeholders to share messaging around what this means for those travelling in the affected area. The materials contain messages around cycling, walking or driving to avoid public transport as well as travel safely guidance if public transport has to be used.
Culture funding
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport have provided a summary of the funding streams available as part of the £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund. These may be of interest to councils and local community organisations and businesses:
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Grants from Arts Council England - £500 million has been made available for cultural organisations that are at risk of failure and who need funding of up to £3 million
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Finance from Arts Council England - £270 million is available in repayable finance
- Capital expenditure fund for existing Arts Council England capital grant holders – funding available to those who can demonstrate a capital funding shortfall due to COVID-19
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Cultural Recovery Fund for Independent Cinemas – funding is available from the Government for building-based independent cinemas who provide year-round filming programming, through a fund administered by the British Film Institute
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Capital funding for heritage – there is a £50 million heritage stimulus fund aimed at restarting vital constructions and maintenance projects on heritage starts, that were stalled due to the restrictions caused by COVID-19. This fund is administered by Historic England.
Business support
You may have seen our joint calls with business groups for the Government to extend business support grants before the schemes close on Friday. Throughout the pandemic, councils have collectively distributed more than £11 billion to about 880,000 small businesses but we are calling for councils to have more time and flexibility to ensure as many businesses can benefit from this funding as possible. We would also like to see the Government commit to redistributing any unspent resources from the original schemes to councils so that it can be spent on supporting local businesses and rebooting local economies.
Public Health Heroes
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vital work of those at the frontline of public health practice. UKPHR, the registration body for non-medical public health specialists, believe it has never been more important for employers to celebrate and recognise the skills, dedication and achievements of their own practitioner workforce. The Register are inviting employers to nominate their own 'Public Health Heroes' – whether through stepping up during the current crisis, or helping make the UK a safer, healthier, better place to live through their ongoing contribution.
There's no deadline and employers can nominate as many practitioners as they like. All eligible nominations will be profiled in an online gallery, with successful nominees and their employers both receiving exclusive digital badges (for use in email signatures and online) in recognition of their status as a PH Hero or a PH Hero Employer.
As you and your teams start the working week, I hope this summary has been helpful. Please do continue to let us know if the LGA, as your national membership body, can support you in any way or raise any particular issues in our regular discussions with Ministers and officials in central government. You can do this by keeping in touch with your Principal Adviser.
Best wishes,
Sarah Pickup
Deputy Chief Executive
Local Government Association
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