Information From the Council

Paul sent this email over from the council to share with the village. 

Dear Town and Parish Council colleagues
Following the Government's announcements yesterday and the open letter to
the public from the Leader of East Riding of Yorkshire Council, I wanted to
take the opportunity to give you an insight into how the council is
responding to COVID-19 and aiming to protect our residents, particularly the
most vulnerable members of society.
My directorate covers Adult Services and Business Management & Commissioning
(which include a wide range of adult social care services), Public Health
and Culture & Customer Services.
Myself and my senior managers have been extensively preparing for some time
for the likely impact of coronavirus on our business continuity plans, as
have the council's other directors and heads of service.
We stepped up our planning and actions last week.
For example, we moved some social workers away from review work to support
our hospital teams who were becoming under intense pressure.
We set up a daily dialogue with the 140 residential care providers and the
40 home care providers,.
We increased resources for residential care homes to step up infection
control measures and provided further advice around protection measures,
which is all part of the various ways we have been supporting and working
strongly and collaboratively with the provider market.
We reviewed these arrangements yesterday morning and stepped up our
arrangements further, including following the national guidance issued by
Government and being proportionate in our response, anticipating the future
and maintaining business as usual as much as we can in these challenging
times.
Many people, including our staff and those who care and support loved ones,
will be anxious and I know this includes many people in your communities and
no doubt some of you as well.
It is, therefore, crucial that we all maintain good operational, tactical
and strategic leadership and come together strongly to support our
communities in these worrying and unprecedented times for all of us.
This morning I have set up an Adult Social Care recovery room which will
operate from 8:30am to 5pm. This will provide us with additional resilience
to support our care providers, inform our intelligence from across the East
Riding and will include a representation from health services.
I have established co-ordinated reporting arrangements to align with the
wider health and care system.
I also recognise that information from our front-line staff, those who
deliver care, ward members, community and voluntary groups and yourselves
- town and parish councils -  remains vital and again my teams are
strengthening the flow of information so we continue to build intelligence
to support our overall decision-making.
Strong and pro-active engagement is in place with the residential care and
home care sectors, which is crucial for us at this time, and we have many
other operational activities under way to support our services.
We remain heavily involved in daily national, regional and local telephone
conference calls with partners from a wide range of organisations, with our
own Public Health experts remaining at the forefront in engaging with the
responses and advising us accordingly.
Government is also issuing guidance to us, with more coming every day, and
this is informing our actions and decision-making too.
The council has well-established procedures for dealing with civil
emergencies as part of the Humber Local Resilience Forum and this
multi-agency body also supports our decision-making.
I know this situation is placing huge demands on all of us and I want to
make clear that we have plans in place, that actions are being taken
specifically across Adult Social Care and also to reach out to you so if
there is anything further that I or my colleagues can help and support you
with, please let me know. This is a dynamic situation and we are planning
and responding accordingly.
I will aim to provide you with regular updates as we all play our part in
supporting our residents and especially those at greatest risk.
Thank you for your support.
John Skidmore
Director of Adults, Health and Customer Services East Riding of Yorkshire
Council