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Q&A with Tracey

We are seeing over 1000 cases a day in Wales currently, and sadly deaths increasing. We hope that we will see the impact of the ‘Firebreak’ in the coming weeks, and that these cases will start to decrease.

In advance of the ‘firebreak’ we worked closely with WG and it became clear we needed to break the pattern and that the local lockdowns in place were not succeeding. We identified there are wider harms, including the impact on mental health and wellbeing, unemployment and inequalities and that the biggest risk continued to be with household mixing.

We advised Welsh Government how we could minimise the rules and look at behavioural patterns of the public for after the ‘firebreak’. Advising WG on what to do next, and how to live with Covid until we have a vaccine.

 

Question from Dr Dyfed Wyn Huws – How much was Public Health Wales involved in advising the Welsh Government on the length of the lockdown?

Tracey – We gave our public health advice on what we thought the length of the lockdown should be and Welsh Government considered that alongside many other factors including economic, educational. It is a really fine balance for governments to strike but yes, we were involved in those discussions.

World Health Organisation
We have been working for a number of years in collaboration, and developing a memorandum of understanding between WG and WHO.

Today we had a virtual launch of the Memorandum of Understanding. There is an alignment on the economic concerns and mental health and wellbeing impacts. I hope that we will be able to provide some traction on some of the broader health issues we need to be advising on.

 

Developing our new operational plan

  • At my last Q&A session I updated you on how our Operational Plan was progressing.
  • I’m happy to say that our Plan for 2020-2022 was approved at our Board meeting last Thursday and I’m really grateful to all those who were involved in the development of the plan.
  • The main message remains that the COVID-19 pandemic remains our absolute priority and therefore we must flex our resources to meet the needs of the pandemic.
  • You may be surprised to hear that it is a plan for 2020-2022, essentially a plan for our activities for the next 18 months. Our response to COVID-19 needs a longer term, planned approach so all of you and our stakeholders can understand our priority areas and what we can be expected to deliver.

 

Tracey – Susan, will you provide more information about the communication planned with staff?

Susan – Yes, thank you. We will be providing a range of materials to help staff understand what the operational plan is all about. We’re planning some live Q&A chats via Teams with the SROs of the different priority areas so staff can have an informal chat to try and find out more about the areas they are interested in. All will be available next Wednesday (11th).

 

As an Executive Team we’ve been having some key conversations on what we can realistically achieve and what we must achieve and how we will mobilise the workforce to achieve it. We’re in the final stages of developing the plan and we’re sharing with our Board. As soon as our plan is finalised we’ll share it with you and share what it means for you and your roles for the next 12 months.

 

Susan – it may be a good time to ask the one question you have received Tracey as it all fits with our conversation: When will those currently working from home be returning to the office? Employees in organisations have been told next March or next summer, with some even suggesting permanent home working.

 

Tracey - Great question and one that we’re hearing quite often.  Our position echoes that from Welsh Government, where colleagues can work from home, they should.  We all have a responsibility to limit our contact with people outside of our households or bubbles and working from home as much as is possible is one way that we can each contribute to lowering transmission of the virus and keeping ourselves safe from contracting it or passing it on.  For everyone’s safety and wellbeing in that context, this will continue at least the end of March 2021 – but of course we will revisit that should guidance from Welsh Government change. 

As part of our Operational Plan, we will be giving everyone the opportunity to engage in discussion about what the ‘future of work’ looks like. We know this pandemic has changed so much for everyone and we need to explore what this means for how we work and where, remote working is likely to be a key part of those conversations.  We also know that working from home for this length of time hasn’t always been a positive for everyone and I remind all colleagues to speak to your manager and seek support from Live Fear Free if home is not a safe place.  I also encourage all managers and teams to keep in touch with each other informally as well as for work based conversations. Further information for both is on our staff information page.

 

Welcome new staff!

Earlier this year we announced that our laboratory service was to undergo a major transformation, made possible by nearly £32m worth of investment by Welsh Government. 

 

The investment has allowed us to plan and make fundamental changes to our service, including the development of a new national infection service. Key to this was the creation of more than 150 new jobs and I’m delighted to welcome the first of those starting with us.


Rhyl and Singleton along with UHW have now started 24/7 working so thank you to everyone there, it’s fantastic that we can offer this going forward. At the end of November we have six additional hot labs that have capability to do faster testing, so a huge amount of work. In December, we open a brand new lab at Imperial Park in Newport.

NHS staff survey
Today the NHS staff survey has opened which is open to all staff working in NHS Wales to complete. If you would like to share your thoughts then please complete the survey – it will take around 5 minutes. However, I know this comes at a time when we are all very busy so I do understand if you are not able to take the time to respond.


Annual Leave
Please do make sure you take time to have a break, and keep an eye out for colleagues as it is so easy to go for months without taking any time away from work.

International Day of Disabled People
The International Day of Disabled People is held on the 3 December each year, focusing on issues that affect disabled people worldwide.

To mark this year’s event, we are asking staff across the organisation to send in a “purlfie” - picture of yourself wearing purple. Purple is internationally recognised as the colour to represent Disability.

If you would like to be included in our montage of staff, please send your “Purlfie” to Rhian.gleed@wales.nhs.uk by Thursday 19 November.

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