The DHSSPS subsequently entered into an agreement with the Public Health Laboratory Service-Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre (PHLS-CDSC) to provide this regional service. CDSC provides a similar regional service throughout England and Wales.

CDSC (NI) is based at the Belfast City Hospital, on the same site as the Northern Ireland Public Health Laboratory. Staff were appointed during the second quarter of 1999 and the Unit became fully operational in its new accommodation in August of that year.

A review of public health functions is to be carried out in Northern Ireland by the Chief Medical Officer this year. This will include how health protection arrangements should be further developed. CDSC (NI), which was formerly part of the PHLS, is now part of the Health Protection Agency, and will continue to undertake communicable disease surveillance pending the outcome of this review.

The key elements of the service provided by CDSC (NI) include:

1. Surveillance of Communicable Disease

This includes monitoring changes in the incidence, prevalence and patterns of communicable disease in the Province and ensuring that relevant information is communicated in a timely manner to consultants in communicable disease control (CsCDC), microbiologists and others involved in the prevention, investigation and control of communicable disease. Surveillance information is published in a monthly report, which is widely disseminated throughout Northern Ireland, to other national centres in Great Britain and Ireland and to the World Health Organisation in Geneva.

The surveillance function transferred during 1999 from DHSS&PS to CDSC (NI) and will be enhanced through developments in information technology. The HPA strategy is for an integrated system for national, regional and local surveillance, through the implementation of CoSurv. This is a laboratory based computer software system which will facilitate the electronic transmission of data from microbiology laboratories to the local CCDC as well as to the Regional Epidemiology Unit for onward transmission to the national centre at Colindale in north London. The roll-out of the laboratory and CCDC modules in Northern Ireland is currently being progressed.

With CDSC (NI) being part of the HPA it is now much easier for Northern Ireland to participate in a range of national surveillance programmes. Northern Ireland is now participating, with other regions in England and Wales, in enhanced national surveillance programmes for meningococcal infection and tuberculosis. This facilitates the collection of epidemiological and microbiological data in a common format permitting comparisons to be made between the various regions of the UK.

2. Advice and support to DHSSPS, Health and Social Services Boards and Trusts

This is on a range of communicable disease issues and includes:

- Contributing to policy development and guidance. Surveillance information, both local and national, should inform communicable disease policy and guidance.

- Assisting in the assessment of local arrangements.

The Unit is represented on the Regional Advisory Committee on Communicable Disease Control and many of its sub-committees. The remit of the Regional Committee is to advise the Department, through the Chief Medical Officer, on matters relating to communicable disease control. The Committee, which is multi-disciplinary and inter-agency, has an independent advisory, consultative and monitoring role.

3. Advice and support to professionals

This includes twenty-four hour advice and support to the Chief Medical Officer and Directors of Public Health (DsPH). The DPH of each Health and Social Services Board has the statutory responsibility for the control of communicable disease in his/her area and this is normally delegated to the CCDC.

CDSC (NI), working closely with HPA colleagues nationally, provides practical support in the management of incidents/outbreaks and, in particular, contributes to the co-ordination of incidents that straddle area, regional or national boundaries.

4. Training and the promotion of professional standards

Control of communicable disease involves staff from a wide range of backgrounds e.g. laboratory, environmental health, general practice, nursing and animal health. Thus training programmes should reflect this multi-professional and inter-agency input.

CDSC (NI) contributes to medical undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and to infection control training programmes in specific Trusts, and is one of the host Institutes for the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET).

5. Research

The Unit will facilitate and undertake research to support effective control of communicable disease. This could include future short-term attachments/secondments to CDSC (NI) for work on specified projects as well as actively seeking research funds.

Last Updated: 20/09/2005

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