Putting insight into action – local authority response to the coronavirus pandemic Presentation to the Analytics Reading Group at Warwick Business School (WBS) on 9 November 2020 https://www.wbs.ac.uk/events/view/6771

1. Putting insight into action: local authority
response to the coronavirus pandemic
Si Chun Lam
Insight Development Manager
Coventry CityCouncil
9 November 2020

2. About me

3. CoventryCityCouncil
Growth – Reform – Enable
“Questioning, influencing and
providing understanding to make
life better in Coventry”Growth – Reform – Enable
“Questioning, influencing and
providing understanding to make
life better in Coventry.”

4. One Coventry Plan: vision and priorities
Globally connected
to promote a sustainable
Coventry economy
Locally committed
to improving the quality of life
for Coventry residents
Delivering our priorities
with fewer resources
Supporting
businesses to grow
Create an attractive,
cleaner & greener
city
Making savings so
that we can support
frontline services
Developing the city
centre
Improving
educational
outcomes
Support the
regeneration of
Coventry’s economy
Creating the
infrastructure for the
city to grow & thrive
Making communities
safer
Change how we work
to become more
flexible & adaptable
Raising the profile of
Coventry
Improving health &
wellbeing
Helping local people
into jobs
Protecting our most
vulnerable people
Empowering citizens
& encouraging active
communities
Increasing the
supply, choice &
quality of housing
Reducing health
inequalities
Working with
neighbours &
partners in all sectors
Reducing the impact
of poverty
Increasing access to
arts, sports & cultural
opportunities www.coventry.gov.uk/councilplan/

5. Insight (Intelligence) TeamPlan 2020-21
Business-as-usual loop
Projects loop
💼
Growth and
prosperity
🖥
Digital first and
transformation
🎽
Population health
management
📈
Performance
management
😊
Compliments,
comments &
complaints
🗺
Geographical
information
systems
Customer
services
Social care
Housing &
homelessness
Data-informed
cultural growth &
JCNA
Tourism
Climate change
and mobility
Pharmaceutical
needs assessment
One Coventry
Plan refresh &
monitoring
Performance
hub & CLT
scorecard
New social care
complaints system
New complaints
website
Research support
(universities, students,
geodemographic segmentation)
Joint
strategic
needs
assessment
(JSNA)
Data management
(child health info,
deaths data)
Population health
management
project –
Children in
crisis
Household
survey
Power BI
reporting
Local land
and property
gazetteer (LLPG)
user group
Strategy,
resource
allocation and
prioritisation
Citywide intel hub
+ bots
Economy
Census 2021
Website +
Facts about
Coventry +
e-Newsletter
Headline Stats
Public Sector
Geospatial
Agreement
(PSGA)
City centre footfall
and empty shops
Public health
intelligence
(suicide prevention,
sexual violence,
youth violence, etc.)
NHS Digital
data sharing agreement
+ hospital episode
statistics
Cultural and
events surveys
Data sharing
and open data
Director of
Public Health
Annual Report

6. www.menti.com
What are Council’s responsibilities in relation to COVID?
Health and Social Care Act 2012
🛏
Social care
🚒
Local resilience forums

7. Identifying the most vulnerable
residents through population
health approaches and
ensuring they have food
supplies, medicine and social
contact.
Identifying clusters of outbreaks
and prioritising high-risk
settings for local backward
contact tracing and developing
systems for managing
outbreaks.
Providing situational awareness
to inform local decision-making
– from public dashboards to
deep dive data analysis.
Insight response to the coronavirus pandemic
Shielding
programme
Local
contact tracing
Epidemiological
surveillance

8. Shielding programme:
providing analysis and intelligence to support the shielding
programme for vulnerable residents

9. Purpose
• The purpose of this work is to provide intelligence to support a single, joined-up citywide response to
support the city’s most vulnerable communities and residents.
• To do so we wanted to use our databases to identify vulnerable persons in the city who may not be part of
the NHS shielded or Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government (MHCLG) vulnerable lists.
• What datasets would be helpful to identify vulnerable persons?

10. CCC data
warehouse
tabular
model
NHS
shielded /
vulnerable
persons list
MHCLG Get
coronavirus
support as a
clinically
extremely
vulnerable
person
DWP
Housing
Benefit
/Council Tax
Reduction
Data
People
Receiving
Adult Social
Care
Services
CCC Housing
Benefits and
Council Tax
Database
CCC
Community
Resilience I
Need Help
Data from the public Data from the Council Data from partners
CCC
Customer
Services I
Need Help
Form
CCC
Electoral
Register
Aged 76+
CCC Local
Land and
Property
Gazetteer
NHS Mental
Health and
Hospital
Trust data
Concept

11. Unique
property
reference
number
NHS
shielded
patient list
UK GOV
local
authority
dataset
Assisted
collections
Safe and
well
checks
Priority
services
register
Council tax
data
Model

12. What we did
• We brought together:
– MHCLG’s vulnerable to coronavirus list
– NHS’s at risk / shielded list
– Council’s datasets including adult services (CareDirector), children’s social care (LiquidLogic), electoral registration, M3, housing
benefits and Local Land and Property Gazetteer datasets.
– School Census Free School Meal and Early Years Pupil Premium
– Waste Services Assisted Collection
– West Midlands Fire Service Safe and Well Checks
• By bringing this dataset together, we can ensure that, once we’ve met our statutory responsibilities to help the government-identified
shielded/vulnerable people, we can also ensure all other Council-identified vulnerable people can be helped.

13. Low-level adult social care & assisted collections
We can also start identifying hotspots for example,
here are the areas of the city where we have
people accessing community and low-level adult
social care support – AND also have an assisted
waste collection.

14. Local contact tracing:
identifying clusters of outbreaks and
following-up high-risk settings

15. Purpose
• The role of the test and trace service is to:
• ensure that anyone who develops symptoms can quickly be tested to find out if they have the virus.
• trace close recent contacts of anyone who tests positive for notify them that they must self-isolate at
home to help stop the spread of the virus.
• identify and effectively target potential clusters which could lead to new outbreaks.
• understand key routes of transmission and identify high-risk settings where more focussed action is
necessary to prevent and reduce transmission (i.e. through ‘backward contract tracing’).
• Local authorities have lots of experience with this with local disease outbreaks – e.g. sexually transmitted
infections; or the Salisbury poisonings.
• Local expertise essential – reflect the diversity of our communities and the range of needs that exist, from
language barriers to inequalities.

16. Background
• The Government began a programme of test, trace, isolate and support (contact tracing) from
28/05/2020 – along with the general availability of widespread COVID testing.
• The system was run centrally – NHS-branded contact-tracing advisory service (CTAS) run by privately-run
call centres.
• Local authorities asked to support this through Local Outbreak Control Plans which (amongst other
things) supported contact tracing with complex cases and settings (care settings, supported
accommodation, workplaces).
• Widespread coverage about problems with the centralised model… and widespread professional
dissatisfaction too (e.g. ADPH).

17. Data
• Initial data available to local authorities were poor and non-existent – widely covered that local leaders
had no data to work with when Leicester was placed into lockdown on 29 June (e.g. in the BMJ).
• Close working relationship with Public Health England (weekly conversations with PHE and West Midlands
colleagues) to push for data sharing and identify improvements.
• Data now much better – and contact tracing has increased a lot too:
– 7 days to 3 June: 41 cases
– 7 days to 26 August: 53 cases
– 7 days to 28 October: 764 cases
May
High level statistics
June
Neighbourhood level
statistics and some
anonymised records
July
Row-level data: cases,
tests, contact tracing
August
Improving row-level
data (e.g. workplace
settings, ethnicity,
occupation)
September
Negative test row-level
data
October
Alternate addresses
(e.g. students’ term-
time addresses)

18. Outbreak ManagerHotspot Manager
📈
Dashboards Watchlist
Developing systems
• We developed a suite of SharePoint and Power BI apps to support local backward contact tracing:
Logs identified outbreaks and
actions taken
Logs emerging clusters and
hotspots and actions taken at
daily hotspot meetings
Combines the daily line listings
and blends with local data for
population health analysis
Record identified settings where
common exposures occurred

19. What we did
• From July we began our own local backward contact tracing. This became a daily ‘battle rhythm’ of…
• As local authorities, we are in the best position to do this, because we can combine the improving data we get from
PHE and NHS test and trace with our own local authority datasets and local knowledge and intelligence. This means
we have reached people before CTAS; resolve issues with one phone call; and identify outbreaks faster.
• Not about building a ‘world-beating’ system – it is about good working relationships to do mundane and often
painstakingly detailed work of combining and making sense of an ever-changing situation – and then taking
appropriate action to address any issues that arise.
🏷 Identify
Hotspots and clusters by postcodes and
settings like workplaces/schools – to identify
high-risk settings, common exposures,
potential transmission routes.
🩺 Diagnose
Working with public health consultants, health
protection, environmental health – who in turn
work with Public Health England, businesses,
schools, care homes to follow up issues and
keep people safe.
👨‍🔬 Reassure
Public health trainees (and since 16 October,
our team of COVID advisors) provide a welfare
call to residents – ensure they understand the
rules; signpost support for finances/food, and
undertake backward contact tracing.

20. Epidemiological surveillance:
situational awareness to inform local decision-making

21. Purpose
• Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire (CSW) was one of eleven Test and Trace ‘Beacons’ – early adopters to
develop a local approach and plan to manage COVID-19 – see www.staysafecsw.info.
• As part of this, I led the CSW epidemiology and intelligence cell.
• The purpose of this is to support the direct public health actions through the development and implementation
of the COVID-19 Test and Trace programme across Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire (CSW) by providing rapid
and consistent data and intelligence to support monitoring and management efforts – and also to escalate and
cascade issues regionally and nationally, including to the Joint Biosecurity Centre.
Control the Covid-19
rate of reproduction R
Reduce the spread
of infection
Save lives
(…and in doing so help to return life to as normal as possible, for as many people as possible,
in a way that is safe, protects our health and care systems and releases our economy.)

22. RegionalRegional
Governance
Testing Cell
(Solihull-led)
CSW Epidemiology &
Intelligence Cell
(Coventry-led)
Outbreak
Management Cell
(Warwickshire-led)
National
Regional Strategic Co-ordination Group
/ Regional Co-ordination Group
Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire
Test & Trace Board
Local Health & Wellbeing Board
Test & Trace Subgroup (public-facing)
Local Health &
Wellbeing Board
Local Covid Health
Protection Board
Test & Trace
Members’ Panel
Member-led
Officer-led
Local authority Regional National
Coventry only
Covid Health Protection
Mobilisation Group
Operational Response
(Proactive and Reactive)
Strategic Oversight Existing LA/NHS
emergency
response structures
RegionalSub-regional(Coventry,
Solihull,Warwickshire)
cal(UppertierandLowertierauthority
level
Schools
Liann
BS/Gemma
Stainthorp
(WCC)
Nadia
/Harriet S
(CCC)
XXX (SMBC)
Single Point of Access for LA
Care homes
Gordana
Djuric (WCC)
Nadia Inglis
(CCC)
XXX (SMBC)
Workplaces
EH/Trad S
(TBC)
Gemma
Stainthorp
(WCC)
Sue
Frossell
(CCC)
XXX
(SMBC)
Homeless
Population
Duncan
Vernon
(WCC)
Valerie de
Souza
(CCC)
XXX (SMBC
Migrant
accommoda
tion
Peter
Barnett
(CCC)
Other settings:
religious
instituions,
airport,
transport com
plex settings/
communities
(D&B link)
Test and Trace Leads: Sangeeta Leahy (SMBC) Valerie de Souza (CCC), Nadia Inglis (WCC)
Data/Intelligence
(CCC lead)
WCC BI
Joint Health Protection Response
Team (WCC lead) – Regular daily
check in with Test and Trace
Lead for LA/PHE patch and link
staff
Testing response
(SMBC lead)
Gordana Djuric (WCC)
CSW Outbreak
Engagement Board
Members, CEx, Directors,
PHE, NHS
Warks and West Mids
SCG/WMCA board
NHS Gold/LA Gold
Local COVID health protection
board
(for each upper tier LA)
Public Health, PHE
Environmental Health, CSW
Resilience, Trading
Standards, Infection Control,
Education, HR, Comms, IT,
Community Development,
Academia, TB nursing, Sexual
Health Services, School
Nursing
NHS Silver/LA
Silver
Routine Member
Fora, including
District and
Borough Health
Portfolio holders
meeting
Regional PHE
Contact tracers
Call handlers
Track and Trace
leads to work
with workstream
colleagues to
support reactive
response,
moving to
workstream
leads leading
response
PHE notifications alongside contact
centre public queries and wider
organisational queries
Community
support
response
Emily V
(WCC)
Jane F (CCC)
XXX (SMBC)

23. Deliverables
1.
CSW early warning system
2.
Test and trace data and intelligence
3.
Local outbreak management
intelligence

24. CSW dashboard

25. CSW dashboard seven-day rates

26. CSW dashboard rates over time

27. Internal dashboards

28. City centre metrics

29. City centre footfall
Broadgate
Square
144%
78%
120%
109%
130%
119%
100% 105%
123%
146%
153%
115%
128%
135% 137%
116% 117%
100%
42%
33% 36%
46%
Christmas Lights
Switch On (20 Nov
2019)
Boris Johnson
anonuncement (23
Mar 2020)
Friargate
District
170%
120%
182%
160% 160%
67%
109%
151%
161%
177%
170%
131% 136%
119%
155%
148%
142%
100%
89% 85% 85%
91%
Reduction in commuters
due to Christmas holidays
Queen Victoria
Road
Pool Meadow
Bus Station
136%
78%
102%
42%
55%
33%
48%
152%
176%
205% 206%
68%
47%
126% 123%
111%
118%
100%
99% 96%
83% 87%
655%
438%
945%
822% 821%
574%
522%
289%
198% 211% 204%
1870%
627%
77%
171% 136% 113% 100%
79%
140%
81%
106%
IKEA announces
closure of Coventry
store (4 Feb 2020)

30. Testing rapid deep-dive
Data from various sources – NHS Digital, Public Health
England Situational Awareness Reports, Coventry,
Solihull and Warwickshire Surveillance Dashboards, all
suggest that Coventry’s rate of COVID-19 testing is
lower than seen elsewhere.
We conducted a rapid deep dive into COVID-19 testing
data for Coventry in September and October. Testing
rates vary significantly by age group, ethnicity, gender,
occupation – and ward.

31. Testing recommendations
The city can increase overall testing rates and reduce the overall transmission of
COVID-19 and its effect on health services by targeting testing at specific groups that
are at particularly high-risk.
This can be done by targeting testing at:
older adults 60-79 (who
are at higher risk of
complications resulting
from COVID-19);
specific neighbourhoods
with lower rates of testing
(Cheylesmore, Earlsdon,
Foleshill, Sherbourne and
St Michael's) and people
belonging to Asian, Black
and Other ethnic groups.
people, particularly men,
working in skilled trades /
process plant and machine
operatives (who are more likely
to be in factory, manufacturing
and warehousing jobs where
higher rates of transmission
has been experienced); and

32. Thank you!
www.coventry.gov.uk/infoandstats/ www.staysafecsw.info SiChun.Lam@coventry.gov.uk