Content

9.1

To outline for Strategy and Resources Committee the near final
version of the 2023 Director of Public Health Report for
Sheffield.

9.2

RESOLVED UNANIMOUSLY: That
Strategy and Resources Policy Committee:-
 

 

(a) notes the 2023 Annual Report of Greg Fell,
Director of Public Health, Sheffield and the COVID-19 Pandemic.
What did we learn?, appended as part of this report;
 
(b) further notes that in the Annual Report
The Director makes specific recommendations as below:
 
(1) Data saves lives - In advance of another
pandemic, we need to have immediate data access permissions that we
managed to establish over the course of COVID to avoid any delay in
getting the vital data to be able to give information to decision
makers what is happening and to direct both policy and operational
response.
 
(2) the scope of planning for pandemics and
exercising - When planning for, exercising for and responding in
future pandemics, we need to think about how the whole of the city
is impacted, particularly with reference to those with poorest
health and every sector has a role in the planning and response.
Pandemic planning should include planning for communication
infrastructure, maintaining education systems, job retention,
economic resilience, community engagement, ensuring robust sick pay
policies, systems for distribution of food and medicines. These
activities are as important as modelling, stockpiling of PPE and
ventilators and NHS resilience.
 
(3) the response cannot ignore the structural
determinants of how infection spreads and poor outcomes - Planning,
preparation, policy and operational response must not ignore the
structural determinants of health that amplify and sustain chains
of transmission, and thus outcomes;
 
(c) notes that the Council will publish the
finalised report in due course; and
 
(d) requests that the Director of Public
Health write to Central Government to emphasise the need to have
immediate data access permissions to avoid any delay in getting the
vital data to be able to give information to decision makers what
is happening and to direct both policy and operational
response.

 

 

9.3

Reasons for
Decision

 

 

9.3.1

As is traditional in DPH reports, an effort is
made to focus on a small number of high level recommendations.
There will be another global pandemic. It is impossible to predict
when. It is thus important to learn from the covid pandemic. It
was, to date, the preeminent emergency of our lifetimes. The
learning and reflection exercise has been conducted in various ways
both within individual service areas, across organisations in the
city as a whole and across South Yorkshire.

 

 

9.4

Alternatives
Considered and Rejected

 

 

9.4.1

None.