Health bosses have 'every confidence' new local plan will tackle the coronavirus outbreak in Portsmouth

CITY health bosses have 'every confidence' a new local approach to managing the coronavirus outbreak will ensure residents can safely 'return to life as normal.'
Southsea seafront.

Picture: Sarah Standing (210520-8820)Southsea seafront.

Picture: Sarah Standing (210520-8820)
Southsea seafront. Picture: Sarah Standing (210520-8820)

Members of the Portsmouth health and wellbeing board today (June 17) approved the formation of two new government recommended boards - the local health protection board and the local engagement board - specifically to oversee how the pandemic is being handled in the city.

The protection board will be made up of health experts and relevant council portfolio holders while the engagement board will be made up of a mix of experts, councillors and community groups tasked with sharing and taking ideas from the public.

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Speaking at the health and wellbeing board meeting, which was held over video call, interim public health director for Portsmouth, Helen Atkinson, explained the main objective of a local outbreak plan is to reduce the spread of infection as lockdown eases.

'These plans are really to mitigate against those changes as we ensure we can return to life as normal as we can in these difficult times for as many people as possible in a way that is safe but also saves lives,' she said.

As part of the local approach to the outbreak the boards will be involved with a regionalised contact tracing network that will provide contact tracing in complex cases including for rough sleepers, residents with special needs, tenants of shared homes and asylum seekers.

Cases that can be dealt with over the phone will be covered on a national level.

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Ms Atkinson said: 'The capacity to do the more complex contract tracing will be within existing resources in the health protection team. And across the region they have taken on 16 extra members of staff.'

She added: 'We don't have complete control of the testing process but as we move forward government has announced the control of testing will move more over to local arrangements and directors of public health.'

It comes as Portsmouth was revealed to have one of the lowest infection rates out of 150 upper tier authorities in the country, placing it as 135th.

In Portsmouth there have been 150.6 confirmed cumulative coronavirus cases per 100,000 of the population.

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In Hampshire so far there were 245.4, in Southampton there were 239.3 and on the Isle of Wight there were 142.7.

As agreed at the meeting the local engagement board will include six city councillors from different political groups, the director of public health, a Portsmouth Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) officer and a representative from Healthwatch Portsmouth, volunteer network the Hive, Shaping Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Education Partnership.

Chief officer of the Portsmouth CCG, Innes Richards, said: 'I am entirely supportive of this.

'I have confidence it will all connect very well.'

The government has pledged £300m nationally to local outbreak plans.

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