Coronavirus: Birmingham councillor's plea to class social care workers as frontline staff

Councillor Paulette Hamilton warned that if social care workers do not get the testing they need in the coming weeks then "hospitals will fall over".

Speaking at the West Midlands’ weekly briefing on the coronavirus on Friday, Councillor Hamilton, cabinet member for health and social care, said that acquiring protective equipment had so far been a ‘nightmare’ for the council.

It was thought as recently as the end of March that the city would have adequate protective equipment to go around, however Councillor Hamilton says that "logistical issues" have meant that some care providers are "struggling" at the moment to provide their staff with adequate equipment.

And she pleaded for social care workers to be re-designated as ‘front line’, so that they could get both the equipment and the testing they need quicker.

She said: “I’m going to do a plea on behalf of social care. We do really need to class them as front line key workers, and they really do need to get the testing. At the moment, if you don’t test the people that are keeping them out of the hospitals, the hospitals will fall over.

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“I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) as well – it has been a nightmare. It has changed from one day to the next.

“Last Friday, when I did this briefing, we had all the PPE equipment. Then by the time I finished the briefing I was told it was very sporadic, and it has been like that all week.

“What I’ve absolutely been told is that nationally there is enough PPE equipment out there. But logistically trying to get it to the local areas has been hard.

“We are expecting a delivery on Monday – we’ve also gone out to voluntary and other organisations that may have PPE equipment like nail bars that are not open at the moment, and we are asking them if they can let us have it.

“We know that some of our care providers are struggling at the moment, for which we apologise, but we are working as hard as we can as a council to ensure that those deliveries are getting to the places they need to get to, so they can absolutely do the job that they are doing so tremendously out there.

“As a local council what we’ve done is written to the government, asking about PPE equipment and we’ve asked about the speed of the PPE equipment getting to people.

“So I just want to end it there by just saying that those have been the two main challenges in the health sector, and we know that in the coming weeks it’s going to ramp up. And so we want people to understand we’re getting ready to ensure, across the region, that we are delivering a service that is fit for purpose for our citizens.”