Gold and BET message from Huw
Publication date: Wednesday 18 November 2020
Approvals: Huw George, Helen Bushell, Quentin Sandifer, Rhiannon Beaumont-Wood, Leah Morantz
As is the case each Thursday, Gold met on 12 November and the first agenda item was a discussion about our response level to the pandemic. I can once again confirm that following much discussion over the last few weeks and —both at Gold and BET, our response level remains at Enhanced.
Our Operational Plan 2020/22 was launched on Wednesday 11 November 2020 and we’ll of course need to keep reviewing how we deploy resources to deliver this plan. This plan recognises the need to put some temporary structures in place to carry us through the next stages. We’ll need to remain as agile as ever, continuing to adapt to the changing circumstances around us. I know that change can be unsettling and I’d like to ask all staff to remain conscious of this and support your peers and team members through these difficult times.
Last Thursday we also published the investigation report looking at the factors that led to the data breach we announced in September as well as a set of recommendations. The Executive team unreservedly accept the report and its recommendations and have considered in detail the action plan which has been pulled together to respond to the report finding. You can read the full report and the action plan on our web site. [insert link]
The Executive team also discussed the Health Protection business case in detail last week. I will provide a further update on this once we have received feedback from Welsh Government. In the meantime, we continue to deliver on our agreed commitments and monitor performance through BET, receiving reports on our key areas of work. Lab capacity along with testing and sampling work remain areas of challenge. Despite this, we remain on track to meet the required capacity planned for December.
I also wanted to let you know that Gold discussed proposals about how we can be ready to start vaccinating our frontline staff once the vaccines are ready for distribution. We will communicate with eligible staff as plans for deployment of the vaccine are confirmed.
Finally, we’ve agreed that moving forward, we’ll hold three BET meetings a month and as part of that we met this week on Monday 16th November. In addition to the pandemic response, we’ll be looking at our regular corporate agenda, including performance reporting ahead of Board next week, which is also our AGM. All staff are invited to join the AGM and you can find details on the intranet.
Once again, I hope you have a very good week and thank you for your ongoing contributions.
Huw