Cumbria Health Scrutiny meeting 23rd February 2021

I usually post advance details here of major council and council committee meetings which I will be attending between a week and a couple of days in advance, when the agenda has been published.

However, in the case of the next Cumbria Health Scrutiny meeting on 23rd February we agreed some time in advance what the main theme will be and I see no harm and potential benefits in flagging this a couple of weeks ahead of the meeting.

The combined effects of the Coronavirus pandemic and of the lockdown and reductions in social contact implemented to fight it have been devastating to mental health and wellbeing, particularly for many of those who are most vulnerable. Videoconferencing systems such as Zoom, WEBEX and Teams have enabled councils, schools, Universities & Colleges, and many social organisations to continue functioning and provided a degree of social contact far beyond what would have been possible even a decade ago but there has still been an enormous impact.

So we have decided that the February meeting of Cumbria Health Scrutiny will focus particularly on the issue of Mental Health and wellbeing in Cumbria, the impact of the pandemic and how the services which support mental health, not just for those patients who normally need high levels of such support but for everyone, are operating and coping with the pandemic.

The full agenda and details for this online meeting will be published about a week before on the County Council website here.

This meeting, would, in normal circumstances, be the last scheduled meeting of the committee in this local elections cycle, prior to county council elections due in May. Of course current circumstances are not normal. I would not bet my shirt against the possibility either of an extra meeting because there is so much ground to cover at the moment, or of the Cumbria county elections and the deferred Carlisle and SLDC elections which had been due in 2020 being deferred because of proposed local government reorganisation. 

If that happens elections are likely to will take place in 2022 for new authorities instead, which will initially start work on a "shadow" basis and take over from CCC and the districts in 2023. 

The same applies in two other parts of the country which have also expressed an interest in local government reform.

Scheduled county council elections in other areas of England, plus deferred district elections, Police and Crime Commissioner elections, and various by-elections, most of which have already been postponed once from 2020, are all going ahead in May 2021.

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