Issue - meetings

Report of the Director of Public Health outlining work undertaken across the City to help prevent and reduce the spread of Covid-19.

The Board received and noted the update report from the Director of Public Health.  The Board particularly noted the following information from Board members:

Symptom Free Testing:

·  Work was continuing on identifying people who were displaying  asymmetric symptoms with the introduction of more widely available lateral flow testing giving people access to rapid test results. 

Role of the Covid Marshalls:

·  Their role being to engage and provide support they had been actively engaged in dealing with the behaviour of customers in supermarkets, reconfiguring queuing systems to ensure people are safe entering and exiting premises, assisting with social distancing information in play areas, helping businesses to understand outside seating areas, working with transport hubs to ensure the wearing of face coverings and appropriate behaviour was in place and managed the through put of people at the recent surge testing in Shirley.

Community Champions:

·  400 people had registered from across the city.  

Innovation projects:

·  aimed at engaging young people.  Participants included Southampton Children’s Hospital, Peer Youth Project, Itchen College and Cantell Secondary School. 

Vaccine programme:

·  Continuing to engage with communities across the City by introducing novel access points to encourage take up. 

Supporting mental health and wellbeing:

·  Campaigns were running city wide for targeted groups to ensure information and support was accessible for those who needed it.