Vaccine rollout and prioritisation details continue to develop at pace and we are very closely engaged with all parts of the system working on these and will endeavour to keep you updated in a timely manner. Each area in the South West has robust individual plans to deliver the vaccine to people in the priority cohorts, based first on numbers of over 80s, numbers of care homes and residents and staff, geography and availability of sites among other factors. This means the approach in each area differs although all areas are working together with the regional NHS England and NHS Improvement South West team, to the same ambition to deliver Covid-19 vaccinations as safely and efficiently as possible.
In preparation for the vaccination, please click here to see an easy read document which gives information on the coronavirus vaccination. There is also an easy read consent form for the vaccination which can be accessed here.
The NHS have also created a great video detailing the vaccination for people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people. Check it out here.
|
This guidance has been produced to support the assessment of capacity to consent to having the Covid-19 vaccination when offered to people with learning disabilities. This guidance is for anyone who is likely to be supporting someone with learning disabilities prior to their vaccination, especially in relation to supporting them to be able to make an informed decision by sharing accessible information, answering questions and discussing the pros and cons. The guidance will also be useful for those who will be making the final assessment of capacity and/or Best Interest decision under the MCA if required.
It is very important that Health and Social Care Workers should get the vaccination. Public Health England have put together this video which answers questions such as 'is the vaccine safe?' and 'why is the vaccine important?'. Please share this short video with all staff.
|
We have launched a very important process to ensure that all eligible* frontline social care workers who care for those who are at increased risk of Covid-19 infection, or severe illness if they become infected, are vaccinated. Please take a look here for further information and guidance.
Urgent next steps for you as an employers or managers are available on the website.
* Eligibility
All frontline social care workers directly working with people clinically vulnerable to COVID19 who need care and support irrespective of where they work (for example in people’s own homes, day centres, care homes for working age adults or supported housing); whether they care for clinically vulnerable adults or children; or who they are employed by (for example local government, NHS private sector or third sector employees).
At this time, administrative staff who do not have any direct contact with clients, Social care workers working with children (under 16) who do not have underlying health conditions leading to greater risk of disease or mortality and unpaid carers are not able to access this phase of vaccination, unless they are entering peoples homes
This is for care homes in England only.
Following our communications on updated staff testing using Lateral Flow Device (LFD) tests, we are pleased to inform you that we now have approval for care home staff to conduct self-test LFDs. This means your staff are now able to take and register their twice weekly LFD tests at home, before they arrive at the care home to start work.
|
This only applies to care home staff and not to other settings in adult social care.
We are working with care homes to ensure they have enough LFD kits to enable the provision of a box of 25 LFD tests to care home staff. These are the same LFD kits that you have been using previously.
If you have enough LFD tests to be able to provide each care home staff member with a box of 25 LFD tests, please feel free to start this process. If you do not have enough kits, please do not ring 119, we will launch the online replenishment portal w/c 1st February, which will allow you to place an order for LFDs.
The online replenishment portal is very similar to the current process you follow for ordering the standard PCR test kits that are used for regular staff and resident testing. The only difference being that from this portal you will select LFD test kits, rather than your standard PCR test kit order. You should continue to order regular PCR kits for staff and residents as per usual.
Once you have placed an order, your delivery will provide you with enough LFD test kits for you to provide each staff member with one box of 25 test kits, which should last them 1 month of testing. Within this order you will also be provided with a confirmatory PCR, for each staff member, which will be part of the replenishment package, and is used should an individual receives a positive LFD.
Please only place an order if you require a replenishment of LFD test kits. There is no obligation to place an order if you have enough LFD test kits already in your home.
As a reminder, these LFD test kits are a new technology which provide a rapid Covid-19 test result in 30 minutes and do not require a lab to process. These should be used in addition to regular PCR testing.
Self-test Guidance
Please share the published self-test guidance to all your staff members who will be testing at home. It is the care home manager’s responsibility to maintain records of the kits that are distributed, including the LOT number, which can be located on the box of 25 LFD tests.
You can find the self-test guidance here.
|
Registering LFD test results
All lateral flow device tests must be registered (whether positive, indeterminate/void, or negative) as a legal requirement at: https://www.gov.uk/report-covid19-result
Understanding results, and the prevalence rate is crucial for public health teams to understand the prevalence of coronavirus in care homes across the country and be able to support the care sector appropriately. It is therefore very important that care homes have made the necessary arrangements with staff self-testing at home to ensure that all results from lateral flow device tests are registered online.
Registration should be done within 24hrs to ensure that results can assist NHS Test and Trace in understanding transmission and prevalence.
Training
All care home staff members that are using LFD tests must have completed the training on the NHS Test and Trace online training portal. The training videos last about 15 minutes followed by a competency assessment.
Link: https://go.tessello.co.uk/TestDeviceTraining/ Token: 3wkcVi4UTX
Any care home staff member who has not yet completed the training can use the above link to create an account, access the training videos, and complete the competency assessment. Once the training is complete, screengrabs of the competency assessment can be sent to the care home manager to be stored for internal records.
Please note, the registration process on the training portal is different to the one described above. You must follow the registration process highlighted in the section above (please see pages 16 to 19 in the self-test guidance for further detail on the registration process).
It is critical that your care home staff member does not begin LFD testing until they have completed the assessment.
|
Webinars
Another reminder, we are continuing our regular care home testing webinars. You can sign up for the webinars here.
These webinars last 90 minutes and give detailed information about all aspects of care home testing. The session will include a live Q&A with representatives from the national care home testing team, who will be able to answer your questions and address any concerns in the session.
If you are not able to attend the webinars, please sign up and a recording of the session will be made available to you after the webinar has been completed.
Who should you contact in an emergency?
Please remember that if, at any stage over the next few days, someone at your organisation cannot cope with the symptoms, or their condition gets worse, or their symptoms do not get better after seven days, use the https://111.nhs.uk/COVID-19 service or call NHS 111. In a medical emergency, dial 999.
Thank you NHS Test and Trace.
|
Over the past week, there has been an increase in the number of hospital admissions of people with COVID-19 who also have a Learning Disability. There has also been an increase in hospital deaths for these patients. This is linked to COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes for people with Learning Disabilities.
Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has highlighted that some individuals with a Learning Disability arrived at the Emergency Department without having a ReSPECT form in place. The Learning Disabilities Clinical Programme Group would therefore like to take this opportunity to support primary care colleagues in having formalised advance care planning discussions with patients with Learning Disabilities and highlight the ReSPECT G-care page and ReSPECT G-care easy read resources.
It is extremely important for out-of-hours and hospital clinicians to have access to patients’ ReSPECT forms, care plans and /or My Health Passport to best support their care and wellbeing. The more information out-of-hours services and hospital staff can have, the better they can ensure that people with a Learning Disability receive the right care, in the right place, with the right people supporting them.
ReSPECT conversations/recommendations and any advanced care planning conversations need to be undertaken in line with the principles of the Mental Capacity Act. These discussions may take time, covering an individual’s wishes; they may also need a best interests approach and /or Independent Mental Capacity Advocate (IMCA) involvement. As such, these advance care planning discussions are important to hold and document before an emergency situation arises.
Please click here to view the Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) standard operating procedure: Covid-19 local vaccination services deployment in community settings guidance (updated 6 January 2021). It outlines the Standard Operation Procedures and pages 21-22 clearly cover the latest guidance in terms of consent and mental capacity.
Inclusion Gloucestershire have developed an online resource hub of material aimed at those with lived experience of disabilities and people who may support them.
The regularly updated resource hub can be accessed here and includes accessible material on many aspects of COVID including:
- What is Coronavirus
- News & Updates
- Lockdown & Isolation guidelines
- Testing & Vaccine information
- Bereavement and wellbeing support
plus much more.
|
This year, the government will provide all nursing and residential care homes in England with a free 4-month supply of vitamin D supplements as it is likely that care home residents will have stayed indoors more than usual over spring and summer last year as a result of the national restrictions for COVID-19. This one-off 4-month supply will be delivered directly to residential and nursing care homes from January 2021.
Vitamin D helps regulate the amount of calcium and phosphate in the body. These nutrients are needed for healthy bones, teeth and muscles. Too little vitamin D can lead to bone pain and muscle weakness in adults, which may also increase the risk of falls in older people.
For more information please click here.
|
The NHS South West have a free 6 week course for those managing long term physical or mental illness during Lockdown. It will be a chance to to meet others in the same situation, learn how to cope better, feel more in control and be more resilient. For more information please click here.
On Monday 1st February, the DHSC announced the introduction of Covid testing in day centres.
The Department of Health and Social Care has rolled out weekly routine staff testing to all day care centres that are run by paid care staff and deemed critical to be open during lockdown by local authorities. Services must be for adults over 18 and are provided within non-residential care settings that support the health and wellbeing of adults. This includes settings such as:
- purpose-built day centres
- day centres attached to or part of a care home or supported living
- other buildings in communities specifically used for regular adult day care
Day care services should begin testing as soon as possible to continue to remain open safely. Where eligible day care services are unable to access whole centre testing in the short term, they should use local routine testing sites for staff if possible, or centres should reduce activity to include tested staff or pause activity until they have a regular testing regime in place.
To check if you're eligible to register for Covid Testing and to clarify please see the process below:
-
Click here to navigate to the correct web page
- Input the ‘DHSC Referrer Unique Organisation Number’, which is 99915258. You will only need to use this code once. The UON cannot be used to order test kits
- Complete eligibility questions
- Input the information for the setting, including delivery address and contact details
- Submit referral
- Referral is sent to LA for approval
- LA assesses if the setting/s meets the eligibility criteria, and confirms or denies the referral request/s
- If eligible, you will be able to place an order for test kits.
This process can take up to 2 weeks for eligible settings to be onboarded. For more information on this process, please click here.
SCIE is supporting the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), and the sector to deliver safe, face-to-face adult day care during these challenging times. They have updated their guide, Delivering safe, face-to-face adult day care, in line with this. It includes practical information and practice examples, plus advice for conducting risk assessments and re-opening.
The latest updates to the guidance include:
- Information on weekly routine staff testing for day care centres that are run by paid care staff and that are deemed to be critical to be open during lockdown by local authorities. Further information on eligibility is included in the guidance.
- Further information on how to access testing, including instructions on how to conduct PCR testing
- What to do in the case of an outbreak
Updates to the PPE guidance including more information on procurement of free PPE for COVID-19 needs via the local resilience forums of local authorities until the end of June 2021
To view the webinar information slides on how testing in day centres will take place, please click here. For more advice and support, please click here.
|
Please see below a list of Covid-19 guidance and resource that has been updated.
BSL interpreter access at COVID 19 testing centres: You can now communicate in British Sign Language while getting a test for Covid-19. Access to online BSL interpreters is available through BSL Health Access
CQC were commissioned by the Department for Health and Social Care to conduct a special review of Do Not Attempt Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (DNACPR) decisions taken during the COVID-19 pandemic. This interim report sets out the progress of the review so far and the expectations around DNACPR. It can be found here
The full report is expected in early 2021 and will include updated guidance and best practice examples.
We would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the resources & guidance available which can support the work and often difficult conversations required to ensure personalised and robust DNARCPR arrangements are in place.
ReSPECT https://www.resus.org.uk/respect
NICE guidance https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng142/chapter/recommendations#advance-care-planning-2
End of Life Care Website http://www.eolc.co.uk/
For advocacy support https://www.pohwer.net/
Please also see think link for to the National Resus Council that has information about ReSPECT and easy read documents:https://www.resus.org.uk/respect/respect-resources
We would encourage all providers to ensure that in addition to any DNARCPR arrangements, documents such as Hospital Passports & Health Actions Plans are all up to date.
If you would like to discuss any of this further and/or seek advice and guidance you can contact the Quality Team on disabiltyquality@gloucestershire.gov.uk or 01452 328463 or speak to your local CQC Inspector.
|
The DHSC has recently launched the Rapid Testing Fund which will provide care homes with additional support for the rapid testing of staff, to support visiting professionals and enable indoors, close contact visiting where possible.
We will be writing out to care homes in the next week with further information as to how they can apply for this grant funding so please look out for the e-mail.
As a key part of our One Gloucestershire Health and Social Care family, we want to thank you for all that you continue to do. Covid-19 has created situations for everyone that we could never have imagined and we know that you have all faced incredibly difficult times over the past year.
The rollout of the vaccine is giving us all renewed hope but we are still dealing with the virus, still seeing people becoming very sick, often very quickly and sadly dying. People are also living in greater isolation from their loved ones and other deaths that are not caused by Covid-19, are very different because of the limitations over visiting.
|
The care you are all providing is absolutely vital. It is also incredibly hard for you as well as for your patients and those important to them. The Every Name A Person campaign was launched early on during the pandemic. We recognised the importance of being honest with not only our community but also each other, that many aspects of care are different and not how we may want them to be but that despite this, we will always try to provide the best care we can to EVERY person that we support. The attached resource pack has been produced to help you all – some of the language may be focussed on an acute hospital setting but can easily be adapted. It gives tips on conversions held remotely, guidance on providing spiritual care where priests/rabbi’s/imams or other spiritual leaders cannot physically attend and also, important information on taking care of yourselves and each other. Across the Gloucestershire Hospitals, we have been using a beautiful wooden Dandelion to support last offices and bereavement and there is information on sourcing these wooden tokens and bereavement cards if you wish to use them.
Other resources are available and an easy read option is also available.
We are very aware you have lots of communications and so are making this short and to the point. If you want to seek more support/clarify any points highlighted, please don’t hesitate to get in touch - glccg.endoflifeteam@nhs.net
or call the GHFT Specialist Palliative Care Team 0300 422 5370 9am – 5pm Monday – Friday
The current requirement is for hospitals to undertake a COVID-19 PCR test on all people discharged into a care home in the 48 hours prior to discharge. All individuals who test positive within this timeframe should be discharged into designated settings in the first instance. The outcome of tests should be shared with care homes prior to discharge and be included in the discharge summary information.
An exception to this process is for individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 and are within 90 days of their initial illness onset or positive test date. If these individuals have already completed their 14-day isolation period from onset of symptoms or positive test result (if asymptomatic) and have no new COVID-19 symptoms or exposure, they are not considered to pose an infection risk. They therefore do not have to be re-tested and can move directly to a care home from hospital. Please click here to access the full guidance.
|
|