Under the new Coronavirus Contingency Planning Procedures, as approved by the Leader of the Council, the executive (Leader and Cabinet) priorities of the Council are amended to simply be:

(i)  preservation of life;

(ii)  supporting the vulnerable;

(iii)  safeguarding children;

(iv)  aiding the Borough’s businesses and economy; as well as

(v) maintaining the health and safety, and support the wellbeing, of our staff.

In view of the Leader’s decision to agree that

(i)  the Head of Paid Service is authorised to take any action in furtherance of the priorities set out above, acting in consultation with the Leader, Cabinet member and/or Group Leaders wherever it is reasonable and practicable in the opinion of the Head of Paid Service to do so; and

(ii)  the Head of Paid Service and each Director is authorised to take any action that officer consider is reasonably necessary to protect the health, safety or welfare of individuals.

The following decision has been made:

That the current contract with Wirral Community Health and Care NHS Foundation Trust for the provision of integrated infection prevention and control services be varied  so as to increase the contract sum payable to the Trust by  additional funding of £684,262 from 17.08.2020 to 31.03.2022 in return for the provision of the following additional services from the Trust.

·  Enhanced infection prevention and control (IPC) support to care homes and community settings with a strong focus on advice, training and improvements in environmental standards. 

·  Additional staffing from the Trust to include senior visible IPC leadership to work closely with the Council to advocate and influence in order to:

(a) achieve higher IPC standards;

(b) enable an enhanced IPC offer to be delivered to Wirral care homes and community setting;

(c) to provide targeted support with a strong focus on training and environmental standards to drive improvements and;

(d) offer a greater level of support, scrutiny, monitoring and compliance.

·  Implementation of an online quality assurance framework for care homes to enable the Wirral system to track improvements in IPC standards over time.

As set out in the report.

An alternative Provider has not been considered as Wirral Community Health and Care Foundation Trust hold the Public Health Contract for the provision of integrated infection prevention and control services to support Public Health and Primary Care.