Issue - meetings

Dr Shade Agboola (Public Health Director – Warwickshire) presented the item and raised the following points:

·               People from deprived and ethnic minority backgrounds were disproportionally affected by Covid-19 early on

·               The first 11 doctors to die from Covid-19 had ethnic minority backgrounds

·               Public Health England (PHE) made investigations into this reason

·               People from ethnic minority backgrounds were dying and contracting Covid-19 more than their white counterparts. Lower social economic status’ and being more at risk from health issues e.g. diabetes was a reason for this 

·               Seven recommendations were proposed by PHE including: organisations supporting communities, undertaking participatory research to understand what was occurring in relation to the wider determinants of Covid-19 among ethnic minority communities and to develop implementable and scalable programmes to reduce risk and improve health outcomes

·               Work went into Warwickshire County Council’s (WCC) Covid-19 recovery plan which had 10 recommendations including PHE’s research recommendation

·               Money from the Outbreak Management Fund awarded to the Council was provided to do this

·               WCC’s Covid-19 plan included grants for ethnically diverse communities to access funding for projects that linked to the research findings i.e. projects addressing the social economic determinants of health inequalities relating to COVID-19 

·               This was done with WCC, PH Warwickshire, Warwickshire Communities & Partnerships and the Benn partnership in Rugby

·               The research included a combination of case studies and a survey from people with ethnic minority backgrounds; these covered: GP experiences, experiences of caring for others, lockdown experiences, any long-term physical health conditions that increased their risk of contracting Covid-19, asking people with physical/mental health conditions, asking people struggling with isolation, people with accommodation issues and issues around vaccine hesitancy

·               Many people from ethnic minority communities were vaccine hesitant

·               Coventry University were commissioned to carry out a rapid literature review i.e. look at the published evidence to tackle health inequalities amongst ethnically diverse populations 

·               The aim of the review was to ensure that whatever strategies were implemented were based on the best available evidence

·               Key findings from the research showed that there was lots of collaboration amongst community representatives which was an original PHE recommendation. It also found that the term BAME did not appropriately represent all ethnic minority groups and the literature review recommended that WCC needed to move beyond information provision to improve trust in health services 

·               Access to primary health care during the pandemic was more difficult

·               There was now a WCC Community Development Worker and Benn Partnership Community Connector that work together to address PHE’s recommendations

·               WCC’s grant process (as above) had £350,000 total funding across two funding rounds in three lots. Lot 1 for projects costing up to £2000, Lot 2 for projects up to £10,000 and Lot 3 for projects up to £25,000

·               Each project had to demonstrate its relevance in: reducing social isolation, supporting mental health and wellbeing tackling, unemployment or tackling physical health. All applications had to include community engagement and demonstrate sustainability, use of volunteers and how they would evaluate it  

·               There was a clear scoring criterion used to assess  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4

Dr Shade Agboola (Public Health Director – Warwickshire) presented the item and raised the following points: 

·        People from deprived and ethnic minority backgrounds were disproportionally affected by Covid-19 early on 

·        The first 11 doctors to die from Covid-19 had ethnic minority backgrounds 

·        Public Health England (PHE) made investigations into this reason 

·        People from ethnic minority backgrounds were dying and contracting Covid-19 more than their white counterparts. Lower social economic status’ and being more at risk from health issues e.g. diabetes was a reason for this  

·        Seven recommendations were proposed by PHE including: organisations supporting communities, undertaking participatory research to understand what was occurring in relation to the wider determinants of Covid-19 among ethnic minority communities and to develop implementable and scalable programmes to reduce risk and improve health outcomes 

·        Work went into Warwickshire County Council’s (WCC) Covid-19 recovery plan which had 10 recommendations including PHE’s research recommendation 

·        Money from the Outbreak Management Fund awarded to the Council was provided to do this 

·        WCC’s Covid-19 plan included grants for ethnically diverse communities to access funding for projects that linked to the research findings i.e. projects addressing the social economic determinants of health inequalities relating to COVID-19  

·        This was done with WCC, PH Warwickshire, Warwickshire Communities & Partnerships and the Benn partnership in Rugby 

·        The research included a combination of case studies and a survey from people with ethnic minority backgrounds; these covered: GP experiences, experiences of caring for others, lockdown experiences, any long-term physical health conditions that increased their risk of contracting Covid-19, asking people with physical/mental health conditions, asking people struggling with isolation, people with accommodation issues and issues around vaccine hesitancy 

·        Many people from ethnic minority communities were vaccine hesitant 

·        Coventry University were commissioned to carry out a rapid literature review i.e. look at the published evidence to tackle health inequalities amongst ethnically diverse populations  

·        The aim of the review was to ensure that whatever strategies were implemented were based on the best available evidence 

·        Key findings from the research showed that there was lots of collaboration amongst community representatives which was an original PHE recommendation. It also found that the term BAME did not appropriately represent all ethnic minority groups and the literature review recommended that WCC needed to move beyond information provision to improve trust in health services  

·        Access to primary health care during the pandemic was more difficult 

·        There was now a WCC Community Development Worker and Benn Partnership Community Connector that work together to address PHE’s recommendations 

·        WCC’s grant process (as above) had £350,000 total funding across two funding rounds in three lots. Lot 1 for projects costing up to £2000, Lot 2 for projects up to £10,000 and Lot 3 for projects up to £25,000 

·        Each project had to demonstrate its relevance in: reducing social isolation, supporting mental health and wellbeing tackling, unemployment or tackling physical health. All applications had to include community engagement and demonstrate sustainability, use of volunteers and how they would evaluate it   

·        There was a clear scoring criterion used to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4