It seems that as soon as we update you with one bit of news, more guidelines and information come to our attention that we need to share with you all.
9 months in and we are so pleased to say that our homes are still Covid free and we cannot thank our staff teams enough for all their hard work and commitment in keeping each other and our service users safe during this surreal time.
As time goes on we learn more and more about this dreadful virus and ways of adapting to a different pace of life. It’s been a tricky time for us all, staying in, not socialising, restricted freedom imposed upon us. Needless to say we have all found it hard but we are all still here and that is the main thing!
We wanted to continue to share with you how we are doing during this time and what we will be doing in the near future. You may have been keeping up with our blog on all our activities within the homes but there’s also plenty going on behind the scenes.
Testing
This is now embedded in all our homes and everyone has got themselves into the weekly pattern of being tested. Results appear to be coming back between 48 to 72 hours which is in line with the national average.
The media have been reporting the news about the ‘quick’ results test. It appears now that care homes will start getting these testing kits. This is great news for us and the industry as it will mean that visits in and out of the homes will be made much easier, knowing that our service users families are instantly Covid free and safe to visit. We anticipate that these tests will become available to us in the New Year as unfortunately the London borough of Sutton were not designated to receive the tests when they were first sent out.
Flu Jab
After initial struggles getting the vaccine, we can now report that the majority of our staff and service users have had their Flu jab.
Christmas
Although the government recently announced ‘Christmas Bubbles’ things sadly work a little differently in care homes due to the amount of people we support.
We will continue to speak with the families about their wishes and each individual situation will be subject to risk assessments and testing.
Vaccine
Who would have thought that news of a vaccine getting approval and being rolled out before Christmas would happen!! Its amazing news that we welcome and hopefully with the majority of the population having the vaccine we can get back to some normality in the very near future.
News of the vaccine is still so fresh that we aren’t 100% sure when we will receive it; although we can say that the government have put care homes and key workers at the top of their list. We have already started submitting our names and we couldn’t be more pleased to say that within the first day we already had around 80% of our staff signed up.
It’s been heavily reported in the news that individuals with a learning disability have been six times more likely to die from Covid-19 than those without a learning disability. We have been lucky that none of our service users have succumbed to this deadly virus to date and now have hope, with the roll out of the vaccine, that they never will.
We will continue to update you on any news but for now we hope that you are keeping safe and well,
Kind regards,
Fountain and Loving Care Ltd.
