Lessons learnt from coronavirus ‘helped deal with monkeypox’, says Wigan public health chief

Rachael Musgrave told the Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee that the collective approach used during the rise of Covid-19 has been maintained and is now being transformed into a more preventative public health system.

“We used that collective approach from the pandemic that supported us and now we are looking at a more preventative approach,” she told Wigan Town Hall. “It helped with dealing with monkeypox.”

A big part of Wigan’s public health team’s next step is increasing vaccination uptake, which was depleted during the pandemic due to a focus on coronavirus.

She told the committee that there has been a pick up in the number of people getting their children inoculated, which has been an issue nationally, but they are yet to reach pre-Covid levels. They plan to make the coronavirus vaccine part of the seasonal jabs like many get for flu each year.

In addition to immunisation, their winter resilience plan would also focus on increasing screenings and scans as well as sexual health and infectious disease where Wigan ‘would benefit from focused attention’, the committee heard. This in turn would hopefully break the vicious cycle of more people in A&E, taking up beds, which in turn leads to longer waits for ambulances and non-emergency surgeries.

Wigan’s elective surgery (non-emergency) wait times have been reduced from two years at the end of June 2022, the chamber heard.

Now they are “on track” to eradicate 78-week waits by March 2023.

Coun Paul Collins raised the issue of the cost of living crisis and how it could impact on the wider public health picture.

This was something Ms Musgrave did say was a concern but they are yet to determine what aspect would be the most impacted – which is another reason why they are looking to a more preventative approach rather than reactive.

The coming winter will be the first in dealing with the aftermath that coronavirus brought and new challenges are ahead, including the cost of living crisis.

This is why the public health team are looking for a longer-term approach to protecting health in the borough.

“Whilst Covid-19 presented significant challenges, which we are on a recovery journey from, it undoubtedly provided opportunities to learn and to evolve our approach to health protection in the borough,” a public health report concluded. “That, paired with the other challenges and opportunities set out in the paper make this the ideal time to review and reset our priorities and approach.”