The report has said that the initial phases of the response to the TB outbreak were not managed adequately. It has made recommendations about how these outbreaks should be managed in the future and both Public Health Wales and Hywel Dda UHB have published action plans on how they are going to meet these recommendations. You can see the action plan for Public Health Wales here, and the Hywel Dda plan here.
As the report says, there has been considerable improvement in the way that the outbreak has been managed. Some of these are as follows:
- Outbreak control team meetings were chaired by an experienced public health consultant, with clear documentation and actions recorded and followed up in later meetings.
- The contact tracing of active cases was described as “thorough”
- Decisions made were appropriate.
The additional resources invested by the HB, to date, include (summarised):
- The creation of a TB lead for the Health Board in 2014
- Dedicated TB clinics
- All active TB cases are being presented in the All-Wales TB Cohort review
- Dedicated TB specialist nurse appointment in 2019. This has facilitated home visits and enabled patients to have a dedicated TB nurse allocated to them who can manage their symptoms, side effects and medication.
- Dedicated TB administration and phlebotomy service since 2022.