A SENIOR Conservative councillor has called on Harlow Council to adopt his action plan as part of the fight against coronavirus in this town.

Deputy leader of the Harlow Conservatives, Joel Charles laid out his plan on Twitter.

Cllr Charles plan is as follows:

1. The council must proactively engage with the Essex military assessment team to secure additional support for all local health and social care settings in Harlow to save more lives.

2. A crisis management centre (reinforcing the community hub and repurposing other council functions) should be established to deal with all virus related issues in Harlow. We need a quicker way to escalate issues to regional and national command structures for action.

3. Introduce more robust social distancing measures in every shopping hatch, continue to promote the importance of wearing a mask and work with the Town Centre management to create a stricter one-way system to reduce risk. The current arrangements are not fit for purpose.

4. Launch an urgent appeal for donations to aid the voluntary response to the virus, led by @RainbowHarlow and other community groups who are working to keep the most vulnerable safe. The council needs to do more to support the distribution of resources to volunteers.

5. Offer vacant and under-utilised council facilities as space for frontline responders, including sites for GPs to carry out a larger number of vaccinations safely, to manage acute capacity issues. The council should use its reserves to retrofit facilities ready for use.

6. Work with the West Essex CCG to help more of the BAME community to access the @NHSDigital COVID-19 symptoms monitor. The programme aims to help patient groups with serious symptoms who often don’t go to hospital soon enough. Read more here:

https://digital.nhs.uk/coronavirus/covid-oximetry-at-home-digital-and-data-services