Author: Lexie Jex News

15.12.21

Dear Residents, Families and Friends.

I hope you are keeping well. Here is our updated guidance on how we can support you to visit your loved ones based on the government care home visiting guidelines published yesterday. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/visiting-care-homes-during-coronavirus

The changes, in brief, are that we must now limit visits to ONE essential visitor or a group of THREE visitors maximum plus pre-school age children.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

For the safety of your loved ones all team, healthcare professionals and contractors must be fully vaccinated, or medically exempt, prior to entering our care homes. The government now strongly recommend the same for family visitors, but they are not requiring this. We believe that you, the relatives, should vote to decide this important question. Please click on the link to our survey and answer YES or NO to ‘Should all visitors be fully vaccinated to enter our care homes’ The survey will close Thursday 16th December at 16.00 and we will then announce the result.

Our full revised visiting arrangements are detailed below with changes in red and commence from Saturday 18^th December.

Yours sincerely

Dave Lock

Executive Chair

INTERNAL VISITING

• You can make visiting entry appointments via our Adept Care Homes website.
• Entry times are available at 15-minute intervals to allow our team to screen visitors and to prevent excessive people in the entrance and corridors.
• You may visit as often as you like providing entry times are available for everyone to do so.
• To protect mealtimes, entry times are available from 10.00 to 11.45, 14.00 to 16.30, and 18.00 to 19.30 and we ask all visitors to leave our care home between 12.15 to 14.00 and 16.45 to 18.00.
• We will review the entry time frequency closer to Christmas for the expected increased demand over the festive period, or before if necessary.
• Apart from mealtimes you may spend as long as you wish with your loved one but upon arrival, please let us know your estimated departure time.
• Your visits will be in the comfort and privacy of your loved one’s room.
• You may visit your loved one in a group of up to a maximum of THREE visitors in total, (excluding essential visitors and pre-school age children). Please consider how room overcrowding may create anxiety for your loved one.
• You must not access any other area of the care home, including toilets, except for your loved one’s room and children should be supervised accordingly.
• Each visitor, including children over the age of 4 years, must provide proof of a negative lateral flow test (LFT) that has been registered on the government website on the day of your visit.
• You may collect a LFT from our care home and conduct it at your home prior to visiting. Or you may conduct your LFT upon arrival at our care home, but you will have to wait up to 30 minutes for the result prior to entry.
• Prior to entry you must have a successful screening by a team member who will ask you some infection control questions and do a temperature check.
• You cannot visit if you have been in contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19 or if you feel at all unwell even if you are vaccinated and have tested negative.
• Upon entry our team will ask you to sanitise, or wash, your hands and provide you with PPE (surgical mask, apron, and gloves) to wear at all times within the care home.
• You must follow all government Coronavirus guidelines at all times during your visit.
• We encourage you to hug and hold your loved one’s hand to help their health and wellbeing. Gloves may be removed for hand holding but we ask for your hands to be washed before and afterwards and if there is no toilet in the room, please ask our team where to do this.
• To keep visitor numbers inside our care homes down, please make any care queries about your loved one by phoning our care home and not during your visits.
• Any items you bring in for your loved one should be easily cleanable like boxes but not flowers etc.
• If you are exempt from wearing a face covering, you must inform us prior to visiting. We will consider the matter taking into account all circumstances such as your vaccination status and relationship to the resident.
• Your visit is not conditional upon being fully vaccinated: however, this is strongly recommended by us and the government for the safety of your loved one and our other residents.
• We will notify changes to our visiting arrangement via our text service so please ensure that our care home has your mobile phone number.
• We may need to exclude a resident from receiving visits in rare exceptional circumstances should a risk assessment determines this is necessary i.e., particularly those clinically vulnerable to Covid.
• Internal visiting may be suspended for a period, or cancelled, without notice upon guidance by our care homes’ local authority. However, visiting will then continue in our external visiting pods.

VISITING PODS

Our external Cabins and Gazebo will now only be utilised should a Covid-19 outbreak occur in our care home. Any 2 residents or team members testing positive is classed as an outbreak and these are mainly team infected within the local community who then isolate out of work to avoid infection risk within our care homes

• You should book a 20-minute visiting slot via our website
• You are not required to have RFT or wear a face mask.
• You may hug your loved one before and after your visit.
• You will not be able to enter any area of our care home including toilets.

EXTERNAL VISITS

You may take your loved one on visits out of our care homes and they may stay overnight in your home. However, we ask that you strictly follow our infection control and testing guidelines to keep your loved one safe and avoid return infection risk to our other residents.

• You may take you loved one on external visits out of our care homes to visit your home or outdoor spaces such as parks, or public gardens.
• Your loved one should not go into any indoor spaces other than your home.
• They may stay overnight at your home subject to our care home’s prior risk assessment and authorisation.
• Please agree collection and return times with our care home prior to your arrival.
• Visitors must provide proof of a negative lateral flow test (LFT) that has been registered on the government’s website on the day of your visit.
• You may collect a LFT from our care home and conduct it at your home prior to visiting. Or you may conduct it upon arrival at our care home, but you will have to wait up to 30 minutes for the result prior to entry.
• Your loved one must only travel to and from the visit in your car or a private taxi and not by public transport.
• All visitors to your home whilst your loved one is there must provide you proof of a negative LFT that has been registered on the government website on the day of their visit.
• Residents will not have to self-isolate when they return.
• If you need the support of a team escort, please discuss with our care home.

ESSENTIAL VISITORS

Essential visitors are given access to all communal areas of our homes and therefore must comply with the same stricter testing regime that our team do.

• Essential visitors will usually continue visiting in the event of an outbreak unless we are requested not to by our local authority.
• All residents may have ONE essential visitor (care giver) for regular internal visits who are authorised and registered with our care home.  
• In some circumstances the manager may authorise TWO essential visitors to visit at one time.
• If you think your loved one would benefit from this type of visit, please speak to your home manager about becoming an essential visitor.
• We will need to agree how often you visit, when and what support or practical help you will provide.
• You will have the same testing regime as our team to include a weekly PCR test taken at the home with the homes e mail address used for results. And two LFT a week provided by us, one on the same day as your PCR and one 3 to 4 days later.

RELUCTANT TO VISIT?

If you have not visited your loved one because they have dementia, and you have concerns of any type or are worried about how they will respond by maybe not social distancing and trying to touch you etc. Then please ask your home manager to speak to our Dementia Manager, Karen Middleton, who will help you and the home to make visits possible. This organisation advocates and provides support for families of residents living with dementia who are finding it difficult https://goldstandardsframework.org.uk/john-s-campaign-dementia