It was in February when I received an urgent request for a meeting with Lewisham’s director of public health Catherine Mbema. This is where I learnt that the first case of COVID-19 in London had been confirmed at Lewisham Hospital. Since that moment responding to coronavirus has consumed almost every part of the council and changed the way we work and deliver services.
As mayor of one of the country’s most diverse local authorities, I have been conscious from the outset of this pandemic about how to ensure we reach all in our community. This communication is vital in ensuring residents can follow the latest guidance, access testing and receive healthcare. With more than 300,000 residents this is a tough ask and we have had to go beyond our usual communication channels to reach them.
I knew many of our residents may not see our official communications channels on the website or social media, therefore, I have been pushing officers to think about how they can engage community and faith groups and produce information that can be shared on Whatsapp (where we know many of our residents receive a lot of their information).
At the moment our local contact tracing is reaching approximately 60% of contacts, but to effectively contain this virus this figure must go higher.
During initial contact tracing work public health teams have found that really simple things have increased the contact rate. For example, residents are much more likely to answer a call from a local phone number than from the national call centre. Clearly, the Government must do much more work to ensure everyone can recognise the national contact tracing number and ensure they answer the call.
Working with colleagues across London we are looking to expand local capacity so that our public health team can do more home visits and follow ups, which the national programme cannot.
Expanding this capacity is challenging, and at the moment we are relying on volunteers from the council to put themselves forwards to be contact tracers. I feel so lucky we have so many dedicated officers at the council who are willing to put themselves forward at this time, however, it highlights the dangerous consequences that Government austerity has had on the capacity of our local authority public health teams.
Researchers at The Health Foundation and The King’s Fund estimate that by 2020/21 there would have been £1bn in cuts to the national public health grant compared to 2015/16 funding levels. This underfunding of local public health teams comes in addition to the Government’s announcement on the abolition of Public Health England (PHE).
This has caused real uncertainty in the public health sector right at the time certainty is most needed. Additionally, despite the Government’s assurances that local authorities should ‘do whatever is necessary’ in responding to the pandemic, the Government has left Lewisham with £20m of unfunded COVID-19 related expenses. It is vital that the Government gives local authorities and PHE’s replacement the financial resources required to contain this disease and protect the public’s health.
This has been a challenging period to work in. While I welcome the arrival of more testing centres in Lewisham, questions still remain about the system’s competence as we hear of people being asked to travel hundreds of miles across the country for a simple test.
Additionally, with the council’s capacity limited we are very conscious in not wanting to duplicate the work of the national contact tracing team. We want to help ensure there is a functioning and effective track and trace system. To do so there needs to be additional funding and emphasis given to local councils and public health teams in expanding their capacity to help lead on this contact tracing work.
Our officers have spent years developing relationships with the communities they serve. They have both the expertise and local knowledge to make track and test a success. The Government must now work to restore the national public health grant to at least 2015/16 funding levels and allow us to build capacity in our public health teams.
Damien Egan is Mayor of Lewisham LBC
