Minutes:
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 applications and the project was live between August-October 2021. All applications were told if they were successful by November 2021
· The successful projects were designed to run for 18 months through a workshop by WCAVA (Warwickshire Community and Voluntary Action)
· Discussions happened with supporting successful applicants to ensure their projects did not deviate from the aims of the original projects were done, and a plan for publicising round two grant applications for greater representation in 2022 was underway. Round three was aimed for the end of 2022
· Projects that applied for funding were checked to ensure they were not already funded and any bids greater than £25,000 required an interview and approval by Warwickshire’s Public Health Director
· There were three successful projects in Lot 1, eight in Lot 2 and four in Lot 3. The successful applications were county-wide and covered all areas of the criteria
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In response to Councillor Tim Sinclair, Dr Shade Agboola stated that they did not have information in relation to whether bids submitted reflected a certain proportion of specific minority ethnic groups. The projects were needs led and dependent on organizations that who applied for the funding. The grants were heavily publicised, and all the successful projects were informed that they had to evaluate their project’s success; the new community development officers were helping with this evaluation.
In response to Councillor Christopher Kettle, Dr Shade Agboola clarified that money was not awarded if the criteria was not met.
Following several questions from Councillor Kam Kaur (Portfolio Holder – Economy & Place), Dr Shade Agboola stated that there was engagement with borough and districts councils to ensure awareness of availability of grant funding. The census data when available should help inform WCC of its demographics for projects like these in the future and this would be embedded into the council plan.
In response to Councillor Margaret Bell (Portfolio Holder – Adult Social Care & Health), Dr Shade Agboola confirmed that the successful project applicants could be engaged with to build trust in health services, especially with rounds two and three of applications.
In response to the Chair, Dr Shade Agboola reiterated the importance of getting the booster jab for Covid-19, especially in Nuneaton and Bedworth borough. Communication colleagues were being engaged with to spread this message. Following a supplementary from the Chair, Dr Shade Agboola confirmed that Nuneaton and Bedworth had the highest amount of vaccine sites in Warwickshire, and she agreed to share this information.
Following a question from Councillor Jenny Fradgley, Dr Shade Agboola stated that WCC raised the concern with traveller communities when vaccines were first rolled out but she agreed to chase this up regarding booster vaccinations.