Notes from recent Relatives meeting held on 17th February 2021

Present:

Elaine Allgood, Anne Appleby, Tracy Friend, Roger George, William Godfrey, Kim Jerome, Andrew Dawson, Iain Russell, Hayley Steed, Helen, Maureen Davis, Lynda, Helen Brand, Deborah Law, Paul Mossman, Sue Burrell, Lyn Harrison Smith, Jo Monaghan, Luke Cook, Adrian Johnston, Isaac Ajibade, Anju Antony, Keren Loxley, Karen Presland, Aliyyah-Begum Nasser, Salma Giga

Notes:

Introduction:

All Askham team present introduced themselves, including new joiners Adrian Johnston (Ops Manager) and Luke Cook (Registered Manager for Court, Place, Grove). Priscilla is still with Askham in a new role chairing a quality and innovation board for Askham Rehab.

Feedback or questions:

Question asked about staff vaccines. Confirmed that of ~180 staff, ~140 have had the vaccine. Those who have not yet had it are a mixture of people who are not able to have it, have not been able to book yet, and have opted not to have it. We continue to encourage all staff to take the vaccine. We can not at present make it mandatory. Residents, for the most part have all been vaccinated.

We thank Doddington Medical Centre for facilitating this for us so smoothly and swiftly.

C-19 Update:

Currently no covid positive residents on site. We had been doing very well when we last met together in October, however December and early January were a tough period for us at Askham. No home has been untouched by Covid, all in different ways.

We had a fairly substantial outbreak in House in December, with a large number of staff and residents contracting the virus. Some residents did sadly pass away and we think of them regularly. We managed to maintain staffing levels with throughout, despite staff needing time off to isolate as many of the healthy staff stepped in to pick up extra shifts. We also had help from a local agency to ensure we were not left short. We were able to cohort staff effectively in line with the guidance such that we had distinct staff teams for covid positive and non covid residents.

At a similar time, in Hall we had a small outbreak which the team managed to contain downstairs only. We are pleased that we didn’t have any fatalities although a number of staff were unwell at different times.

Throughout both, we had incredible support from the Local Authorities who checked in with us almost daily and provided significant support in the form of best practice sharing and lessons learnt from other outbreaks. We had CQC attend both homes during the outbreak to check our PPE procedures and they confirmed we were following all guidance issued.

In Court we have had staff members test positive. In Place we had one resident test positive however she was soon admitted to hospital for unrelated matters for the duration of her isolation period. In Grove we had a resident new admission test negative prior to arrival the positive a few days later.

We have learnt a lot through these situations and continue to be vigilant.

Staff are testing weekly – once with the more accurate PCR test (results take a couple of days to come back) and twice with the less accurate but rapid response Lateral Flow Tests.

Residents are being tested monthly.

Comments received thanking the ‘staff who went above and beyond’, during ‘tough times they did an incredible job’. Thanks also for ‘managing us as well as managing the residents.’

Relatives Survey:

Thank you to everyone who responded to the survey – most helpful and we are pleased to note that overall there is comfort amongst relatives that residents are being well supported during these unusual times. We have passed on to the staff all the lovely comments you made in the your survey responses – thank you! The one item that came out of the survey for us to work on was to improve communications – we will do our very best here.

Visitors Policy:

We have taken on board the feedback you shared in the survey and have also considered what has worked well previously. We will be taking a case by case approach to visiting going forward rather than simply have a one size fits all policy. For example we know some relatives travel from far to visit so 20 minutes may be unreasonable. Others have families with 2 children in the same household and therefore restricting to 2 feels unfair.

In general, we will opt for the lowest risk option of visiting type taking into consideration clinical need and family circumstance. Ideally outdoor visits would take place, using one of the gazebos. If this is not feasible, we would have a doorway visit in a designated space or resident room (where the room has an external door). If this is not feasible we would hold an indoor visit in a designated visiting space. Specific details are now published here.

We will not be asking relatives to undertake a Lateral Flow test on arrival as we can not rely on the results of these tests with them being known to provide both false positives and false negatives. Instead we will rely on what we know works well – social distancing, masks, outdoor spaces or ventilation etc.

Question asked about looking at other homes which have allowed visits for weeks now. It is true we have been slower than others – partly due to our outbreaks as we must wait at least 28 days to be clear before re-opening, but also because we took an internal decision to wait until our residents had been vaccinated. We meet with other providers fortnightly to share best practice and learnings.

Question asked about providing a letter if needed to justify travel to Askham: Yes we can provide a letter to confirm you are travelling to Askham for legitimate reasons.

Team updates:

Training continuing as previously by zoom.

Activities team have been doing a wonderful job keeping residents entertained despite not being able to mix as freely as we have done previously. Games are taking place in the unit as well as a fair bit of cooking with the recent pancake day and national pizza day. Weekly activity packs are being provided with quizzes and colouring plus other crafts and items for staff and residents to do.

Compliance updates

Nothing in addition the previous mention with regards to the CQC visits during our tough period in December. We are working closely with all local stakeholders and finding these relationships to be enormously beneficial and supportive.

Any Other Business:

Nothing noted