Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of the Public Health Wales Board will be held on Thursday 28 July 2022 at 10:00.
Public Health Wales is both the public health institute in Wales and an NHS Trust. The AGM provides the opportunity to engage with us in reviewing the 2021/22 achievements across the breadth of our many roles and responsibilities, and in discussing the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Electronic copies of the Annual Report and the Audited Accounts will be available on the website in both English and Welsh.
The Public Health Wales Board is committed to openness and transparency, and conducts as much of its business as possible in a session that members of the public are normally welcome to attend and observe. However, in light of the current advice and guidance in relation to Coronavirus (COVID-19) we made the decision in March 2020 in the best interests of protecting the public, our staff and Board members agreed to no longer convene or gather in groups for meetings. We have since been holding our Board meetings virtually.
We are pleased to advise that we are livestreaming our Annual General Meeting on the 28 July 2022 to provide the opportunity for anyone with internet access to observe in real time. The link to the meeting is included below and will also be shared on our social media channels.
As attendees you will be able to observe the meeting in Microsoft Teams - desktop (Windows or Mac), web, or mobile. If you do not have Microsoft Teams, you can also use a browser (Chrome, Firefox, or Edge). Please note Safari is not currently supported.
Electronic copies of the papers are available and accessible to download from the Public Health Wales Board’s website 10 calendar days prior to the meeting via following link:
Questions for the Board are welcomed and can be submitted in advance by e-mailing them to the team 3 days before the meeting. Please could you submit all questions by 5pm on Monday 25 July 2022 to PHW.CorporateGovernance@wales.nhs.uk
We will endeavour to answer all questions received in advance within the Question and Answer session of the agenda. Please note any questions that are not addressed within the time available on the agenda will be provided in writing following the meeting and made available on the website.
You will also be able to post a question during the AGM via the Question and Answer facility within Microsoft Teams, if your device allows. Any questions submitted during the AGM will be answered in writing following the meeting. These will be made available via the website on this page.
Response from Andrew Jones, Deputy Director Health Protection and Screening Services:
Wales, as the rest of the UK, continues to experience ‘waves’ of Covid-19 infection and PHW is continuing to work with partners to provide specialist advice and support to the response in Wales.
Public Health Wales has an emergency response plan that defines the escalation criteria for an enhanced response to an incident. In an enhanced incident, PHW will deploy resources from across the organisation to help with the response. This approach was deployed for COVID response and will be the mechanism by which PHW can continue to provide appropriate resources to meet the demands of future surges in COVID, or another health protection incident, as required.
The Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) published its interim advice regarding the COVID-19 booster vaccination for Autumn 2022, including eligibility criteria. Welsh Government have determined that all people over 50 years will be offered the COVID booster alongside flu vaccination by the end of November, and end of December, respectively. Public Health Wales will support the implementation of the programme, working with key partners across Wales.
Response from Neil Lewis, Director of People and Organisational Development:
The wellbeing of our staff, and ensuring wellbeing is supported by line managers, and the Leadership and Executive Team is really important to us and we take a systemic approach to this by cyclically asking staff how they are feeling, by monitoring relevant data and management information and by building what this tells us into action plans against which we measure our progress.
We have a robust suite of tools and support which benchmarks well, from an employee assistance programme which provides a plethora of support including a counselling service, to signposting help with cost of living increases.
We regularly run workshops for managers to enable them to support the wellbeing of their staff and People and Organisational Development professionals are available to provide support to managers when this is needed.
Since the pandemic we’ve run three “Tell us How you are Doing” wellbeing surveys. Three overarching themes have emerged as priorities:
We have an action plan in place which sets out what we will do to tackle them and report progress quarterly. Actions range from only scheduling meetings and events during standard working hours and outside of lunchtime to developing a Public Health Wales behavioural framework, linked to our values, which clarifies the expectation of all managers. We also monitor relevant data; Occupational Health referrals, absence etc.
Later this year we’ll participate in the NHS Wales staff survey and we’ll use the insights of this, along with insight from the three Wellbeing surveys to build on our staff wellbeing and engagement plans.
Response from Rhiannon Beaumont Wood, Executive Director Quality, Nursing and Allied Health Professionals:
Public Health Wales wants you and your family to enjoy the best possible healthcare in Wales and we process the personal data that we require to help us achieve this. We only process the minimum amount of personal data that we need to perform the task that we are carrying out.
In the main, we process your personal data for purposes directly connected with ensuring that you receive high quality healthcare through the NHS.
In almost all cases, Public Health Wales processes the personal data of individuals in order to directly carry out our statutory functions in relation to the provision of a national public health service. This means that because we are established by Act of Parliament and are required by law to carry out these functions, current data protection law does not allow us to rely on an individual’s consent. Instead we have what is called a lawful basis for processing, which is because the processing is ‘necessary for performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.’
If we asked for an individual’s consent to process their personal data, and that individual refused, then we would not be able to provide that person with the health service that they require. This means that the person would be disadvantaged by refusing consent, which would be unfair. This is why the law permits for us to process personal data without consent.
In some cases we will want to process people’s personal data for reasons beyond our statutory functions. When we want to do this, we do ask for consent to process the personal data that we need (e.g. if we want to take and use your photograph in our marketing materials, or you wish to subscribe to a newsletter). In these cases when you give your consent you will be told how your personal data will be processed. You will also be told how you can withdraw that consent and opt out of further processing.
On some occasions, we need to process the personal data of large number of individuals in order to develop the intelligence that we need to improve the overall health of the population. A good example of this is a cancer registry. This is known as secondary processing. When we need to do this, we apply for permission to the Secretary of State for Health who, if it is felt appropriate will grant permission under the Control of Patient Information Regulations.
If you would like more information on how we process personal data, please refer to the Public Health Wales Privacy Notice at Privacy Notice - Public Health Wales (nhs.wales)