Agenda item

The Health & Social Care Sub-Committee is provided with an update for its consideration on the recovery and response of health and care services in the borough to the pressures caused by the winter season and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Sub-Committee considered a presentation set out on pages 13 to 24 of the agenda and a second presentation included in a supplement to the main agenda, which provided an update on the recovery of services and the ongoing response to the Covid-19 Pandemic and winter pressures.  These presentations had been provided to allow the Sub-Committee to understand the current risks to service provision and to seek reassurance that these risks were being managed.

The presentations were delivered to the Sub-Committee by the Croydon Health Services Chief Executive and Place-Based Leader for Health, Matthew Kershaw, the Corporate Director for Adult Social Care and Health, Annette McPartland and the Director of Public Health, Rachel Flowers. These presentation can be viewed on the following links: -

Covid-19 Response & Winter Pressures

Public Health – Living Safely with Covid-19

Following the delivery of the presentations, the Sub-Committee was given the opportunity to ask questions on the information provided. The first question highlighted that the early stages of the pandemic saw an increased loss of life in care home settings, but in subsequent waves Croydon had performed well in this area. As such it was questioned what lessons had been learnt. It was advised that limiting the vulnerability of older people to the effects of covid-19 had been identified as a priority by health and care professionals early in the pandemic, which had led to the safeguards introduced becoming an example of good practice. The introduction of the vaccination and the work invested into ensuring the vaccination rate was as high as possible had played a key role in improving resilience to the impact of covid-19. The vaccination work would continue as it was essential to safeguard against the potential impact from any future waves of the virus.

Given the rising cost of living nationally, particularly the cost of food and fuel, was likely to lead to increased poverty, it was questioned whether plans were in place to ensure the resulting rise in demand for services could be managed. It was acknowledged that inflation and poverty were likely to be game changes which would impact on many areas of people’s lives. The rising cost of inflation had been built into the Adult Social Care budget, but whether this amount was sufficient would need to be closely monitored. It was likely that people would be coming to social care for the first time and as such it would be important to ensure that good advice and guidance was available at the ‘front door’.

In response to a question about how home visits by midwives and health visitors had been impacted by the pandemic, it was advised that these services had been maintained through the introduction of precautions, particularly earlier in the pandemic. This had included virtual visits in some cases to limit risks, but these services were now running at their pre-pandemic levels. The Council’s Public Health team had worked closely with colleagues at the Croydon University Hospital throughout the pandemic to ensure health visits could be managed safely.

It was highlighted that Healthwatch Croydon was received a lot of feedback from patients about the difficulty of accessing GPs, with an update on this requested. It was confirmed that surgeries had continued to offer face to face services throughout the pandemic, although virtual appointments were encouraged where possible to minimise the risk of covid-19. The current number of appointments was at a higher level than pre-covid, with a higher proportion of face-to-face appointments compared to virtual appointments. There was also a lot of activity in primary care to support people’s wider needs through work such as social prescribing.

The Sub-Committee agreed that areas such as mental health provision and the impact from rising inflation would need to be closely monitored in the forthcoming year. It was also agreed that the Adult Social Care Budget and the impact from delivering the identified savings upon service delivery would also continue to be a priority for Scrutiny going forward.

In closing the discussion on this item, the Chair highlighted the impact of the pandemic on people especially the workforce over the past two years. It had required a lot of hard work and dedication from staff working in health and social care to ensure Croydon responded as well as it did to the challenges presented by the pandemic and the thanks of the Sub-Committee were given to those involved. The Chair also thanked Dr Agnelo Fernandes