COVID-19 - News updates for all West Sussex Care and Support Providers
16 June 2020
Welcome to today's newsletter, which includes the following:
A new dedicated COVID-19 provider zone is now live on the West Sussex Connect to Support website and is available to support all care providers. You can easily access national and local guidance and resources on essential topics including PPE, infection control, COVID-19 testing and workforce and recruitment.
Please let us know if there is anything else you would find helpful to include in the newsletters or on the website and we'll do our best to add them. Contact us at contracts@westsussex.gov.uk.
Since Friday 12 June we have now issued over 300 grant agreements to enable us to give infection control grants to care home providers as outlined by government. Some care providers have already returned signed grant agreements or emails agreeing to the terms which means we are now able to release the payments. Since issuing the grant agreements, we have received some enquiries seeking clarification on what the money can be spent on.
In response to these requests, care home providers will receive an email tomorrow with additional guidance on the infection control grant. In addition, there will be a brief template for you to complete. This will break down the areas on which the money can be spent and you will be asked to show which category(ies) you have spent against or plan to spend against. There will be a short deadline, as we need to use the information to inform a return to government by 26th June in order for the second tranche of funding to be released on 1st July.
We are aware infection control in your care business is a key priority for you today. There is a focus on recently published national guidance around reducing infection by minimising movement of staff.
The Proud to Care Team are now offering additional support to assist you with this. We know you are being asked wherever possible to ensure permanent and agency staff are working in one setting. We appreciate this is easier said than done and have put together some information that we hope may be useful. We understand the impact of this with an increase in staff absence and residents having additional needs, and that businesses are relying more on agency staff than usual.
The Proud to Care Team at West Sussex County Council now offer bespoke 1-2-1 support over the phone or by email for help with recruitment and retention. We may not be able to come and see you, but we are still available to support you with workforce deployment, recruitment, retention, reducing agency usage and supporting your staff.
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The following sets of guidance were updated on 15th June, notably the title of the guidance has changed to better reflect the content and some of the tables have been updated or merged. The updates to the respective sets of guidance are shown on page 2 of each document.
The page "COVID-19: how to work safely in care homes" now houses the newly titled guidance, Personal protective equipment (PPE): resource for care workers working in care homes during sustained COVID-19 transmission in England. The updates to the resource are as follows:
- the title of this resource has changed from “How to work safely in care homes” to better reflect the content.
- removal of table 3 for simplicity (the scenario previously described has been merged into Table 2)
- addition of questions and answers to Section 2
- addition of Section 3 relating to care for people with learning disabilities and/or autism.
- further explanation/minor changes to responses to selected questions in Section 2
- further detail added to recommendations including specification of surgical mask types (defined in consultation with HSE and MHRA)
The page "COVID-19: how to work safely in domiciliary care in England" has the newly branded guidance, Personal Protective equipment (PPE):resource for care workers delivering homecare (domiciliary care) in England. The resource has been updated from the previous version of this document as follows:
- addition of questions and answers to Section 2
- addition of Section 3 relating to care for people with learning disabilities and/or autism
- further explanation/minor changes to responses to selected questions in Section 2
- further detail added to recommendations including specification of surgical mask types
(defined in consultation with HSE and MHRA)
Please note that, although the government guidance is published referring to care homes and domiciliary care, providers supporting in Extra Care, Supported Living environments or similar may find this guidance equally as helpful.
The Department of Health and Social Care have released a high priority recall message for Citotest swabs:
"It is has come to our attention that one of the batches of swabs in circulation does not meet our safety standards (brittle stems at risk of snapping whilst being used) and should be recalled immediately.
The swabs in question are Citotest swabs, batch number 200032. All other swab types, including Citotest swabs with different batch numbers, are not impacted and are safe to use.
We ask that you immediately check all swabs that you still have in your care home, to see if they are from this affected batch. We have attached a photo of an example swab from this batch, so you can see what it looks like and how to identify the 200032 batch. Please check the batch number which is the 6 digit number printed in black next to the logo “LOT” (which indicates which production batch the swab is from). This number is circled on the photo attached.
If you do have any unused swabs from batch 200032 then you must not use them for testing. Please stop all testing and dispose of any swabs with the batch number 200032. If you require replacement swabs to complete your first round of whole home testing, then please forward this email to COVIDCareHomeTesting@dhsc.gov.uk with the information in the table below completed:
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Care home name
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Care home ID number
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Care home address (including postcode)
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Number of impacted swabs disposed
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Number of replacement swabs required to complete whole home testing
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Unused swabs can be disposed as general waste. If you have used any affected swabs without incident then please do not worry. Used swabs can still be collected for processing as per normal arrangements, however, please do not conduct any further testing using these swabs.
If you have previously used swabs from the affected batch to carry out whole care home testing, we can assure you that the recall of these swabs does not affect the validity of the test results that you have received.
If you do not have any of the affected swabs then you do not need to take any action. You can continue your testing programme as planned and you can disregard this email.
If you have any further questions please join our daily care home testing webinars, you can sign up at: https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/2375949/724EF6345473A192F6B9C19334699A29/1077953"
We are sharing this opportunity to be involved in some research on care homes as we wanted to ensure that providers were aware and know how to participate.
The ‘Enabling Research in Care Homes’ ENRICH Network provides support to care homes across the UK in order to help them understand what research is, what benefits research brings and how to get involved.
ENRICH is free to join and optional. It’s part of the National Institute for Health Research, which is the largest funder of health and social care research in England.
If you are interested in finding out more information, or are an existing ENRICH member please complete this brief online EOI survey link. ENRICH can send you further information depending upon your interest.
If you have any questions please contact us (Claire Cox) at crnkss.studysupport@nihr.ac.uk.
Easy read guidance: Swab test - How it works
With thanks again,
Contracts and Performance Team
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