The Director of Public Health introduced the report which provided the Committee with an update on plans to develop a local Health Protection response for Wirral, evolving from the Local Outbreak Hub model, established in response to the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020.

Wirral’s Local Outbreak Hub was funded until 30th September 2022, by the Contain Outbreak Management Fund (COMF). It was outlined that the COMF grant would continue to fund the newly revised Health Protection Delivery Service for six months, from October 2022 until March 2023, when this funding stream concluded. The report sought approval for the Core Public Health Grant to be used to fund the Health Protection Delivery Service for twelve months from April 2023 to March 2024, to ensure local resilience and continuity.

Public Health teams had learned from the pandemic response and built on local requirements and health protection capabilities. The Director emphasised the importance of ensuring sufficient local resources to deal with periods of increased demands such as new waves of COVID as well as other respiratory diseases which often worsen in the winter months.

In response to a query on how this would support residents with the current outbreak of Monkeypox it was reported that the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) were managing this but the skillset of the team within the Local Outbreak Hub was something that could be utilised with any disease and the team were working on plans for if and when management of this needed to be undertaken locally.

Clarity was sought on the necessity of the Health Protection Delivery Service from April 2023 to March 2024 due to relatively low case numbers of COVID. It was outlined that the Health Protection Delivery Service would be equipped to deal with a number of clinical diseases and issues in the borough that needed a local response.

Resolved (10:1) – That the funding of Wirral’s Health Protection Delivery Service from April 2023 to March 2024 through the core Public Health Grant in the sum of £705,756 be approved.