Care Provider Covid-19 Newsletter

31 May 2022

Attachments for this bulletin are available for download online

Adult Social Care

Hand Hygiene

Following our successful World Hand Hygiene event held at Keynsham we are organising a futher event to be held at The Hollies Midsomer Norton – date to be confirmed watch this space!

Hand hygiene is one of the most important procedures for preventing the spread of infection.
All staff should have training on hand hygiene, it is best practice that this is provided on a regular basis, e.g. annually. It is essential that everyone takes responsibility to ensure that the care provided is carried out in a safe manner.
Residents should be encouraged to wash hands or use skin wipes after using the toilet and before eating and drinking.
It is best practice to be ‘Bare Below the Elbows’ to facilitate effective hand hygiene when delivering direct care.
The use of liquid soap, warm running water and paper towels, is sufficient in most circumstances.
Alcohol based handrubs are a suitable alternative unless hands are visibly dirty or soiled, or when caring for residents with vomiting and/or diarrhoea, or Clostridioides difficile.
Staff should know when to wash their hands and have an appropriate poster displayed in the home as a reminder, e.g. ‘Your 5 moments for hand hygiene’.
Hand hygiene is important before putting on and after removal of each item of personal protective equipment, e.g. pair of gloves, apron, or domestic gloves.
It is recommended that, for assurance purposes, annual audits to assess the standard of staff hand hygiene are carried out. Please see attachment for the hand hygiene poster.

If you would like a refresher on hand hygiene please drop us an email at– IPC@bathnes.gov.uk we will be in contact to arrange a suitable day and time – your staff can take the ‘ultra violet light box challenge’

Current Guidance

Please refer to the links below for full details.

Admission During an Outbreak

Care homes who wish to take admissions during this time should follow the B&NES Council Discharge Process for admission of patients to care homes during periods of outbreak and complete the BNES Council Care Home Admission risk-assessment, to ensure that it is safe to accept the admission for all concerned. The Local Authority Public Health Team, Commissioner for Adult Social Care and the Infection, Prevention and Control Team are available to provide support and advice to aid this process.

The purpose of the process and risk assessment is to assure confidence for the resident, their family, your staff and current residents of safety, during this period of high community rates of COVID-19 infection.

Please note that as per the guidance the final decision to accept an admission lies with the Registered Care Manager.

If you are unsure about whether the admission/discharge is a known Covid contact we would recommend you isolate them for 10 days, with the option of release early as per the guidance.

Please contact the IP&C team if you want to take an admission if any of the following apply:

You are currently under outbreak restrictions
The admission/discharge is Covid positive
The admission/discharge is a known Covid contact

If you have and questions or queries please email IPC@bathnes.gov.uk and one of the team will get back to you.

Contain Outbreak Management Fund (COMF)

Round 2 COMF application process for submissions of project proposals in B&NES for the use of the COMF allocated by DHSC is now open.

The purpose of this allocation of funds is to help reduce the spread of coronavirus and support local public health initiatives. The COMF is designed to support the delivery of the objectives set in the Local Outbreak Management Plan and remains ring fenced for public health purposes to tackle COVID-19.

We are offering funding to local organisations, voluntary services and B&NES Council services to support projects that enable residents to live safely and fairly with COVID-19, while retaining resilience to respond to new variants and any resurgence of COVID-19.

Criteria

Details of criteria for projects to meet are included in the attached document ‘B&NES Council Round 2 Applicant Guidance’. This document also includes a guide for criteria that are no longer relevant due to the national shift in policy to Living with COVID-19 and includes further information that proposals should consider.

We are also welcoming proposals of less than £5,000 into our small grants scheme, and proposals that are above £5,000; both will follow the same application process.

We ask that proposals are kept below £50,000 but in the rare circumstance a project approaches this amount please contact B&NES Public Health before progressing.

Further information on project timelines can be found in the applicant guidance.

Application Process

The application process is now open and the application form can be accessed online – COMF Round 2 Application Form

We recommend that you write answers to the longer questions in an offline document and then paste into the application form when you have all the information to hand. We have included a PDF document with a preview of these longer questions to help you prepare your application.

The deadline for applications is 23:59 Friday 24^th June 2022.

Attached is a timeline of the application process for information.

Further Support

For an applicant guide, preview of the longer questions, FAQs and a timeline of the application process please go to the COMF Secure Share site: https://bit.ly/COMFdocuments
Password: CVSMay 2022?

FAQs will be available the week beginning Monday 30^th May and will be kept updated.

If you have a question about COMF please look at these documents first and if your query is not answered please e-mail B&NES Public Health with ‘COMF Application’ in the subject title.

Vaccination update

Covid-19 Vaccination Clinics

There's still time to grab your Covid-19 vaccination first, second or booster doses.

Anyone aged 5 years old and over can book their vaccination appointment online or find a walk-in clinic on the NHS website. You need to be registered with a GP (or call 119) to book online. You do not need to book or be registered with a GP to use a walk-in clinic.

If you're planning to attend a walk-in, please check the 'grab a jab' website to make sure the site is open on the day.

If you’ve had a positive Covid-19 test, you need to wait before getting any dose of the vaccine:

4 weeks, or 28 days if you're aged 18+ and or if you're an at risk 12-17 year old
12 weeks, or 84 days if you're aged 12-17

This starts from the date you had symptoms, or the date of the positive test if you didn't have any symptoms. If you or your child have had symptoms of Covid-19, but haven't had a test, you should wait until your symptoms are better to get a Covid-19 vaccine. Talk to a healthcare professional at the site.

Spring COVID-19 vaccine for the most vulnerable

Please contact the IP&C Team IPC@BATHNES.GOV.UK you are struggling to book your Spring Boosters for your residents.

Don’t Forget The SWHPT Care Settings Q&A Sessions Every Friday, 3pm

SWHPT are still holding weekly question and answer sessions for all care providers. This is a great chance for you to ask any questions directly to the Public Health team, as well as listen in to other care providers queries and speak to like-minded colleagues. If you would like to be invited to this weekly Q&A session, please email IPC@BATHNES.GOV.UK and we will forward the invitation to you.

Staff Health and Wellbeing

Supported Loving Workshops

Relationships and Sexuality Awareness Training for Social Care Staff Training - Supported Loving members have been working with Skills for Care, CQC and the Department of Health and Social Care surrounding relationships and sexuality support. We spoke to staff across social care asking what they need and have reviewed existing training materials. We have used this, combined with our own experience, to develop a course for social care staff on how best to support people with sexuality and relationships. We are offering a free one-day training course with either Claire Bates or Sue Sharples to give your feedback on the course to ensure this meets YOUR needs. Find out more about the work of Supported Loving and their resources here.

The course will cover:

Understanding sexuality and relationships: barriers, benefits and the impact of staff values
Roles, regulations, and the law
Sexual safety, safeguarding and autonomy
Practical approaches to relationships and sexuality support

This is open to all social care staff and will be suitable for those working in care and support worker style roles at L2/3 inc senior style roles.
There are two dates available (one or the other-both sessions are the same content). Sessions are a full day (more info will follow once you are booked). Please book directly on the Eventbrite links given.

Online 21^st June - Booking: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/344063060877
Classroom 6^th July London (Waterloo) - Booking: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/344073151057

Supported Loving are keen to ensure that this offering reaches non Learning Disability & Autism services. This is due to them offering/providing some additional sessions for their network which mainly includes this type of service provision and workforce. Please do still apply or make contact with them though regardless of service.

Please note Skills for Care are sharing this information on behalf of Supported Loving, if there are any specific questions the sector can liaise directly with Claire.bates @choicesupport.org.co.uk

Mental Health Campaign – Lift someone out of loneliness

Feeling lonely is something that all of us can experience at any point and it can have a huge impact on our wellbeing. It’s important to remember that these feelings can pass and that there are lots of ways we can help each other too.

Fancy a cuppa? Fancy a walk? Sometimes reaching out to each other with as little as three words can make a big difference.

As part of the Better Health: Every Mind Matters campaign, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport are encouraging people to ‘Lift Someone Out of Loneliness’ by taking a simple action to help someone who may be feeling lonely. If we do this regularly, we can all help to lift each other up.

Find out how you can help to lift someone out of loneliness.

Looking after your wellbeing

With the ongoing pressures we are facing to deliver critical services, we would like to remind you that help and support is available for health and social care staff in Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire (BSW).

The BSW Wellbeing Matters team can provide direct access to psychologists and registered mental health clinicians who will use their expertise to help you access support. The BSW Wellbeing Matters Team provides consultation, advice and support to individuals and teams and can help services think about the wellbeing of their staff and offer advice and support as appropriate.

To contact the team to request support, please call 0800 953 9003 and leave a message on the answer phone or alternatively by email - awp.bswwellbeinghub@nhs.net

To find out more about the BSW Wellbeing Matters service visit: http://www.awp.nhs.uk/advice-support/bsw-wellbeing-matters/