£3.1m for new staff to fight Covid in city

GOVERNMENT PAYS FOR 13 JOBS FOR AT LEAST A YEAR

NEW staff will be appointed to deal with coronavirus outbreaks in Nottingham.

Nottingham City Council will create a number of new roles with £3.1m from the Government.

The council wants to take on two full-time permanent public health consultants, as well as 11 new temporary posts – including two senior public health managers, a senior public health analyst and project officer – for a year.

In a report, council officers told councillors: “The current level of resourcing across the service is not sufficient to deliver the work required to ensure that Nottingham is prepared for, and able to effectively respond to, Covid-19 outbreaks.

“It is anticipated that all resources will be required for – at least – the next 12 months and, therefore, posts will be recruited to, or seconded, on a fixed-term basis.”

The £3.1m came from the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) Local Authority Test and Trace Service Support Grant, supporting local authorities with money towards expenditure incurred, or to be incurred, to mitigate and manage outbreaks of coronavirus.

The money will support the city council’s Local Outbreak Control Plan, which has a particular focus on reducing outbreaks in places like schools, care homes, prisons and factories.

A DHSC spokesman said: “We are providing extensive financial support to local councils to protect and improve public health during the pandemic and beyond.

“The size of payments to local authorities under the Test and Trace service support grant was decided as part of the 2020/2021 Public Health Grant allocations which ensure there is a proportionate distribution of funding.

“As well as making over £11 billion of funding available to local councils to support them with the costs and impacts of Covid-19, we are increasing the public health grant in 2021/22. “This will ensure local authorities can continue to invest in prevention and essential frontline health services.” The news comes as an expert said it was “inevitable” there will be a new wave of coronavirus infections and that face coverings and some sort of social distancing may still be needed later this year.

The current level of resourcing across the service is not sufficient

City council report