Questions over handling crisis
SOME THINGS could have been done differently in Calderdale during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a senior local health leader.
Calderdale Council’s Director of Public Health, Debs Harkins, was answering questions asked by members of the council’s Adults, Health and Social Care Scrutiny Board.
Councillor Steven Leigh (Con, Ryburn) said commentators nationally in retrospect were quite critical of a number of things national government had done.
Given some people were “very wise after the event”, he asked if the authority would have done anything differently through the pandemic.
Ms Harkins said Coun Leigh was right to point out things changed quickly and she could remember days when the situation deteriorated rapidly.
She said the council had learned to react much more quickly to rapidly changing situations.
“At times it’s been so fast moving it is easy to lose sight of what people in Calderdale need to do. It is about adapting,” she said.
One thing which had really made a difference was setting up and operating the council’s own community COVID programme, as prevention was key.
“I wish we had done that sooner and rolled it out across the borough sooner,” said Ms Harkins.
Coun Colin Hutchinson (Lab, Skircoat) said the disease had shown it could recover quite quickly and wanted to know what the council was going to do differently to ensure that did not happen in Calderdale.
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