Focus during firebreak lockdown will be on pointing people towards help

At their meeting on Tuesday, October 20, Cabinet members heard how successful the support for shielding Powys residents’, had been.

Portfolio holder for Corporate Governance and Engagement, Councillor Graham Breeze, said: “This is a very timely report.

“It provides an update on the end of shielding and the council’s welfare calls.

“Clearly the situation is changing on a daily basis and following the First Minister’s on October 19, we will be keeping a very careful eye on the situation, and reviewing whether we need to re-introduce welfare calls during any future lockdowns.”

Councillor Breeze said that the report highlighted the “enormous” amount of work done by dedicated council staff, and that it was reflected in the positive feedback received.

Councillor Breeze, added: “Just how vital a service this was for residents trapped in their homes. and in many cases without another person to talk to I suspect, is evident in the comments.”

He praised the hundreds of volunteers across Powys who came forward to form invaluable support groups, Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations for helping to coordinate and establishing a Community Sector Emergency Response Team and councillors who delivered food, prescriptions and other essentials.

Director of Transformation and Resources, Vanessa Young, said that nearly 24,000 calls were made to people on the shielding list between April 3 and August 25.

Ms Young said: “The Regional Partnership Board which includes the health board, third sector and other representatives agreed that CSERT would lead our work on providing the community response during the ongoing pandemic.

“If we feel in future that welfare calls would be beneficial, we would look to reinstate those.

“It is only a two week lockdown and the organisation was only able to provide those calls by re-deploying people from elsewhere.

“We have concluded that this time around our focus will be on communicating with residents so that they know how and where they can access support should they require it.”

Council Leader, Councillor Rosemarie Harris said: “We have very little information about what will happen during this short period of lockdown, in terms of shielding.”

The report was noted.

On March 25, Powys received its first data from the Welsh Government, identifying 538 residents in this group.

More health conditions were added to the list which saw the total go up to 5,766, people

A further 4,538 people were identified as vulnerable from county council data, 10 council workers redeployed from other departments made the calls and at the start the Welsh Government received 915 request for food boxes, this was 15.8 per cent of the people classed as shielding.