Yesterday the Health Protection Agency announced that Watford, Hertsmere and Three Rivers have been designated as areas of “widespread community transmission”. In essence this means that attempts to contain the spread of the virus have had only a limited success and swine flu is now increasingly prevalent within the community – a situation we share with colleagues in the West Midlands, London, Luton and parts of Berkshire.

We are consulting with the HPA as to the practical implications of this announcement but we understand that this change of status may mean a different approach is taken to manage outbreaks in school, in that particular part of the county. Whilst local risk assessments will continue to be performed by the HPA and Head Teachers at each school associated with cases, we understand that closure will not normally be recommended unless there are some special circumstances. This reflects the opportunities for further exposures to occur in the community compared with areas where there is no significant community transmission.

Staff in CSF will continue to work closely with Head Teachers to try to minimise the impact on school activity of sickness absence amongst pupils and staff between now and the end of the school term.

From HCC’s perspective the likely consequences are:
less pressure on staff to find emergency child-care solutions (where schools might otherwise have closed)
potentially higher sickness absence from staff living and / or working in that part of the county
increased staff absence where carers need to stay at home to look after close family members who themselves catch swine flu.

All departments have recently refreshed their business continuity plans which should put us in a good position to deal with this situation and ensure that all HCC services can be delivered with the minimum of disruption.