Case studies

In many two tier areas, Preston County Council has taken the lead on setting up local contact tracing teams. Often they host the contact tracers, leaving the districts to do the home visits. This case study is part of a series on local contact tracing.

Cambridgeshire County Council runs the Cambridge University Science and Policy Exchange (CUSPE) Policy Challenges programme, which unites researchers, councillors and officers in a collaborative, research-led approach to policy-making.

From the start of October, Liverpool council went live with a more enhanced version of contact tracing. The national team started passing down cases after 24 hours and Liverpool’s contact tracers were given access to the CTAS recording system.

Following an extended period of change and significant service disruption due to poor contractor performance, a review of the council’s waste team was undertaken engaging an expert consultant to help determine the future shape and direction of the service.

Derbyshire County Council looked at their maternity pathway and ways to identify improvements and reduce smoking in pregnancy (SiP) rates. Smoking is the main modifiable risk factor associated with a range of poor pregnancy outcomes and can impact on the health of the child throughout their lifetime.

This project has effectively built upon its well-established digital housing offer through this project. The team have implemented further resource alleviating solutions into the service while at the same time consolidating back office services under a unitarisation programme of 4 local districts with the county council.

The project team are awaiting delivery of the products from the supplier as migration to the new system and user acceptance testing is completed and verified for the Go-live launch.

This project has enabled a successful channel shift to deliver a flexible service 24/7/365. This delivers a more convenient option to alleviate traffic away from traditional housing options services. The model offers one main consolidated referral route giving customers an efficient and effective way to engage with their local authority.

This project has had to pivot products from one back office system to a new overhauled alternative. This refocused approach provided the team with a solid foundation of experience and resource that will now be embedded in the change programme of the housing IT system. The department will now benefit from the work carried out by the team as the housing system innovates over the upcoming year.

Leicester never really left lockdown. In late June it had the highest rate of positive cases in the country so just before the re-opening of restaurants, bars and hairdressers on 4 July it was announced the city was to go in reverse.