COVID-19 - News updates for all West Sussex Care and Support Providers
02 July 2020
Welcome to today's newsletter, which includes the following:
Visit our dedicated COVID-19 provider zone website for easy access to national and local guidance, resources on essential topics including PPE, infection control, testing and workforce and recruitment. We would encourage providers to visit the site before emailing or calling to see if their query can be easily answered.
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.
Have you returned your Infection Control funding agreement?
We have a small number of outstanding infection control fund agreements (S31). If you have not returned your grant agreement please ensure this is submitted by 3rd July. The agreement must be signed, dated and returned in full (nine pages) to enable us to check, validate and authorise payment of the infection control fund. If we do not receive a completed agreement your payments will be delayed.
If you have not yet received an infection control agreement from us, please let us know immediately by emailing contracts@westsussex.gov.uk.
Please remember that infection control fund payments are subject to the recipient having completed the Care Homes Capacity Tracker at least once and committing to completing the same on a consistent basis by signing and returning this grant agreement. Payments of the second instalment are subject to conditions set by the government and the Council's satisfaction that you have complied with the terms and conditions of this grant agreement, which includes consistent completion of the daily Care Homes Capacity Tracker.
Grant funding data returns
We have not yet received all infection control grant returns and remind providers that unless this return is completed, the Council cannot guarantee that ‘providers’ will receive the second tranche of the fund. If you have not yet completed this return please send the completed Infection Control Grant return form to contracts@westsussex.gov.uk no later than 3rd July. This form indicates your intentions to attribute spend of the allocation against the areas corresponding to the government guidance ‘About the Adult Social Care Infection Control Fund’. For suggestions on how care providers may wish to commit the infection control grant please see the document within this link.
25% allocation on Infection Control Fund
The Council, like most other Councils, has been considering how to allocate the remaining 25% of the infection control fund. Unlike the 75% for care homes, the government has not set a formula or identified who should receive an allocation. We have considered the spirit of the funding and how this can be allocated to support good infection control and formulated a number of recommendations. An added challenge we have in West Sussex is ensuring we have considered all care and support providers, not just those known to us through services we commission, so we can make recommendations from an informed position and understand the impact on the available funding. These recommendations are the subject of a formal decision that will be taken within the next few days.
Once the decision has been taken we will make an announcement through this newsletter, alternatively please keep an eye on the Council’s website where the decision will be published.
CQC have released a report supported by ONS of a targeted piece of work to analyse the impact of COVID-19 on different ethnic groups in care settings. This data indicates a disproportionate number of deaths among people from BME groups. Follow this link to see the report.
All essential workers, including care home and hospice staff, are eligible for coronavirus testing whether they have symptoms or not. The following are the dates and locations so far for July, for the mobile coronavirus testing locations in West Sussex:
-
Sunday 5th - Haywards Heath (Clair Hall, Perrymount Rd, Haywards Heath RH16 3DN)
-
Monday 6th - Haywards Heath (Clair Hall, Perrymount Rd, Haywards Heath RH16 3DN)
-
Tuesday 7th - Haywards Heath (Clair Hall, Perrymount Rd, Haywards Heath RH16 3DN)
-
Wednesday 8th - Worthing (Brooklands car park, Brighton Rd, Worthing, West Sussex BN11 2HP)
-
Thursday 9th - Worthing (Brooklands car park, Brighton Rd, Worthing, West Sussex BN11 2HP)
-
Friday 10th - Worthing (Brooklands car park, Brighton Rd, Worthing, West Sussex BN11 2HP)
-
Sunday 12th - Chichester (Chichester College car park, Westgate Fields, PO19 1SB)
-
Monday 13th - Chichester (Chichester College car park, Westgate Fields, PO19 1SB)
-
Tuesday 14th - Chichester (Chichester College car park, Westgate Fields, PO19 1SB)
-
Wednesday 15th - Midhurst (The Grange car park, GU29 9HD)
-
Thursday 16th - Midhurst (The Grange car park, GU29 9HD)
-
Friday 17th - Midhurst (The Grange car park, GU29 9HD)
Testing for individuals is by pre-booked appointment only. You may attend by car or on foot. To book an appointment, contact the Sussex Booking Hub: sxccg.covidtestingreferrals@nhs.net.
Appointments at the mobile units and the drive-through facility in Bognor are only available through the Sussex Booking Hub. These are in addition to the drive through facilities at Gatwick and Brighton Amex and the home testing kits that are available through the national website. New suspected outbreaks in care homes must still be reported to local Health Protection Teams as usual for testing and infection control support. For residents and staff without symptoms, care home managers can request testing kits from the national website.
For the latest guidance and to request testing kits for a whole care home, visit the Gov.uk page dedicated to this.
An opportunity for health and care staff to have a voice has been presented by Dr Anuj Kapilashrami, a Senior Lecturer in Global Health Policy based at Queen Mary University in London. He is part of a consortium of researchers from Queen Mary University of London, University of Essex, University of Oxford and University of Leicester conducting a short survey-based study of health and care workers exploring their perceptions of safety and experiences of COVID-19 management in their work. The study adopts an intersectional view to examine the influence of gender, ethnicity, and professional role in shaping their perceptions of safety and experience of COVID-19 management in their workplaces, a neglected aspect in COVID-19 research.
Social inequalities (with regards to ethnicity, age, gender) inform the distribution of risks and burden of COVID-19 infections and deaths. Yet, to date no systematic assessment has been conducted to understand how these factors shape workers’ experiences of COVID-19 management and protection measures in their workplaces. The survey is public, open to all health and care staff (front line, allied, support staff) and is an opportunity for them to voice to concerns that perhaps they’ve not been able to in the crisis.
The survey is short and will not take more than 10 minutes to complete, if you or your staff would like to be involved please click here.
With thanks again,
Contracts and Performance Team
| 
