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Care Matters Weekly: Friday 26 November 2021
Walk-in flu vaccinations next week, free digital skills webinars, visiting arrangements for care homes, COVID-19 outbreak guidance for supported living, NHS COVID Pass scam alert, SARS, vaccination videos and more. Please share.
Published on 26/11/2021 in Adult services | Care Matters Weekly | Children's services | Covid-19 | Job Portal | News | Weekly Information Sharing FAQs | Workforce
Walk-in flu vaccinations next week, free digital skills webinars, visiting arrangements for care homes, COVID-19 outbreak guidance for supported living, NHS COVID Pass scam alert, SARS, vaccination videos and more. Please share.
- COVID-19
- Walk-in flu jab vaccinations: Friday 3 December
- Updated guidance: visiting arrangements in care homes
- COVID-19: guidance for providers of supported living services
- IPC guidance to include seasonal respiratory infections
- Approved COVID-19 vaccines and countries with approved proof of vaccination
- NHS COVID-19 Pass fraud alert
- Guidance on outbreaks of Norovirus in care homes
- COVID-19 vaccination videos: get involved!
- Adult Social Care recruitment
- Information sharing
- Webinars and Training
- Sutton Care Hub
COVID-19
Walk-in flu vaccinations: Friday 3 December
A walk-in vaccination clinic is being held on Friday 3 December at the Centrale Shopping Centre, 21 North End, Croydon CR0 1TY. No appointment required.
View the walk-in details
Updated guidance: visiting arrangements in care homes
Updated guidance is available on how care homes can support families and visitors to visit residents. It sets out:
- Visits that should happen in all circumstances
- Safe visiting practices
- When different visiting arrangements are needed
- Sources of information and support
Change made:
- Updated to place more emphasis on face to face visits should take place wherever is most comfortable for the resident
- Visiting restrictions due to an outbreak should only be in place for 7 to 8 days following negative testing, and that physical contact should be supported to help health and wellbeing
- Advice around flu and other transmissible viruses has also been added, along with guidance on how care homes can support residents on visits outside of the care home
COVID-19: outbreak guidance for providers of supported living services
This week (29 November 2021) the government updated guidance for providers of supported living settings to reflect the latest clinical advice from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). The summary change note in the guidance includes a full breakdown of all the updates.
The guidance sets out:
- Key messages to assist with planning and preparation in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak so that local procedures can be put in place to minimise risk and provide the best possible support to people in supported living settings
- Safe systems of working, including social distancing, respiratory and hand hygiene, and enhanced cleaning
- How infection prevention and control (IPC), and personal protective equipment (PPE), apply to supported living settings
IPC guidance to include seasonal respiratory infections
This week the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) updated the infection prevention and control (IPC) guidance for health and care settings during the COVID-19 outbreak to cover other seasonal respiratory infections (SARS).
The updated guidance will help prevent transmission of seasonal respiratory viral infections focusing on COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in health and care settings. The new guidance recommends:
- Removal of the COVID-19 high, medium and low risk care pathways so that everyone without symptoms of a respiratory illness will follow the same precautions
- Screening, triaging, and testing for COVID-19 should continue over winter – testing for other respiratory pathogens will depend on the health and care setting according to local and country-specific testing strategies
- Staff, patients and visitors to wear face masks at all times while in health and care settings over winter
- Physical distancing remains at two metres where patients with suspected or confirmed respiratory infection are being cared for or managed
- Physical distancing can be reduced to at least one metre, increasing whenever feasible to two metres, for non-respiratory patients across all health and care settings
The IPC principles in this document apply to UK health and care settings. Adult social care providers in England should refer to existing COVID-19 care home guidance already in place.
How to work safely in care homes, including PPE
Approved COVID-19 vaccines and countries with approved proof of vaccination
New guidance has been issued on approved vaccines and a list of countries and territories with approved COVID-19 proof of vaccination for travel to England. Find out more
NHS COVID-19 Pass fraud alert
Criminals are using the NHS COVID Pass as a way to target the public by convincing them to hand over money, financial details and personal information. If you receive a suspicious email or text, remember:
- The NHS App is available in England for free
- The NHS COVID Pass is free
- The NHS will never ask for payment or any financial details
- The NHS will never issue fines or penalties relating to your NHS COVID Pass
If you receive what appears to be a scam email please report it to Action Fraud
If you are planning to travel abroad, you can apply for a legitimate NHS COVID passport
Guidance on outbreaks of Norovirus in care homes
We’ve got a handy short guide on how to deal with an outbreak of Norovirus in care home settings (it’s from Scotland, but the principles apply in terms of what to do). The government has more detailed guidance on what to do in the event of an outbreak.
View the guide from Scotland
COVID-19 vaccination videos: get involved!
Now that the mandatory vaccines deadline has passed, we would like to feature staff in a mini-campaign, highlighting the role they have played in getting vaccinated to keep residents and the community safe. The video will be used by the Council to help encourage local residents to take up the COVID-19 vaccine and testing programme.
The videos will be posted on the Council’s social media channels until early next year – when the NHS deadline falls. We would also like to disseminate to our voluntary groups to share with their members.
If you would like to get involved and showcase your wonderful staff and the care they are taking to help keep residents safe, please talk to your care home manager to get more details. Hope to see you on social!
Download the permissions form and our script ideas to help you.
Adult social care recruitment
Workforce Capacity Programme
As part of the Council’s ASC Workforce Capacity programme, we will shortly be releasing an opportunity for Adult Social Care providers to bid for funding to support your staff recruitment and retention.
Please look out for further stories on the Care Hub/an email with fuller details in due course!
Digital skills webinar – get ahead for recruitment
The SW London CCG, supported by Barclays Digital Eagles, is running two webinars to help boost your digital skills and support you to use social media to attract new staff (ahead of our social care recruitment campaign that we are planning for the New Year).
The first session is aimed at people who aren’t confident or comfortable with digital technology and want to know more about it. The second is aimed at managers who may want to boost their recruitment opportunities via social media, but who may not be confident with the various types of social media and what’s involved.
Session 1 – Getting to grips with the basics
- Tuesday 7 December (10am – 11am) via Microsoft Teams
- Thursday 9 December (2pm – 3pm) via Zoom
Session 2 – Using social media to boost recruitment
- Tuesday 7 December (2pm – 3.30pm) via Microsoft Teams
- Thursday 9 December (10am – 11am) via Zoom
To book your place on either session, please email margaret.sharpe@skillsforcare.org.uk and specify which date you want to attend.
Information sharing
Tenders out for new mental health support provider
The Council published a tender opportunity this week for a new Mental Health Support provider in two supported housing settings.
The new service will promote recovery and resilience, facilitate social inclusion and wellbeing and will help the service user to integrate positively into the community and to identify and access settled accommodation.
The tender closes on 24 December, with the new service starting in July 2022. View the Tender details.
Don’t forget – add/update your jobs
If you have any vacancies, please add them to the Job Portal! As part of our forthcoming recruitment campaign, we will be signposting the public to the job portal so that they can search for roles, so please start to populate it with your vacancies!
If you have any old vacancies that have been listed for sometime, could you take a moment to review them and delete any out of date ones, or update or republish current vacancies so that our jobs page keeps looking fresh.
Contact [email protected] if you need any assistance with the jobs portal.
IPC Champions launch event: 30 November
A new network of adult social care infection prevention and control champions will be launched on 30 November, to help maintain and continuously improve standards across the care sector.
Run by the Queen’s Nursing Institute, the scheme will be supported by Chief Nurse for Adult Social Care Deborah Sturdy OBE, and backed by a £35,000 grant from the Department of Health and Social Care.
Lessons learned from the pandemic will be rolled out through the network to help minimise the future spread of infections, including COVID-19 and flu, to protect people living in care homes and receiving home care. The champions will share best practice through a series of virtual meetings, a newsletter and discussion forum.
To join the IPC Champions Network, sign up via the QNI website. This is a professional network for clinicians and managers of care. Register to attend the IPC Champions Launch Event on 30 November.
Weekly Information Sharing FAQs
Dear Colleagues,
Webinars for Care Homes
Thank you for joining the Webinar for Care Homes this week – we hope that these continue to support you during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important to remain diligent in following guidance, using PPE and supporting staff and residents to be vaccinated.
The next IPC webinar is on 30 November.
View the agenda
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Webinars and training
IPC sessions for Community Social Care staff
Infection Prevention and Control education sessions for all levels of Community Social Care staff take place online every Monday between 2pm and 3pm.
Register at Eventbrite to attend.
General IPC training sessions for all Community and Social Care staff
Join senior IPC nurses to learn more about general infection prevention and control training including: MRSA, Tuberculosis, diarrhoea, rashes, wound care, specimen taking, head lice, scabies, respiratory infections, including COVID-19, staff health and more.
Sessions run online every Thursday between 2pm to 4.30pm. Register at Eventbrite to attend.
Weekly Information Sharing FAQs webinar
The COVID-19 pandemic remains an extremely challenging situation globally and we recognise that this is the case for staff working in Care Homes of all types. We are continuing the weekly Infection Prevention and Control and Information Sharing webinar Tuesday mornings at 11:00am.
+44 20 3880 0300 United Kingdom, London (Toll)
Conference ID: 855 305 74#
Local numbers | Reset PIN | Learn more about Teams | Meeting options.
Weekly Capacity Tracker webinar
Capacity Tracker Webinars for Care Homes are taking place at 2:00pm every Friday.
Click here to join the meeting on your computer or mobile app Or call in (audio only) on +44 20 3794 0272 Phone Conference ID: 311 948 485#
Sutton Care Hub Job Portal
To support Sutton’s care providers to recruit the best staff for all positions from management, to clinical staff, carers and administrative support, we have created the Sutton Care Hub Job Portal.
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An archive of previous editions can be found on the Sutton Care Hub.
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