Notes from recent Relatives meeting held on 26th July 2021

Present:

Helen Wisener, Paul Mossmon, Diana Lefevre, Linda Robinson, Trevor Norris, David Nunn, Martin Godfrey, Richard Friend, Roger George, Sue Kightly, Lyn Harrison Smith, Anne Appleby, Mumtaz Suleman, Deborah Law, Maureen Davis, Micheal Chambers, Keith Dennis, Elissa MacDonald, Chris Smith, Kat Coutts, Eric Birch, Ismat, Michael and Rosemary Scott, Ian and Sandra Russell, Michelle Sage, Bill Haylock, Anju Antony, Bev Contaoi, Isaac Ajibade, Keren Loxley, Maz Godwin, Luke Cook, Salma Giga, Jo Monaghan, Karen Presland, Adrian Johnson, Aliyyah Nasser

Notes:

Introduction:

Thank you to everyone for taking the time to join, and to those of you who completed the survey earlier this month – your input and feedback much appreciated. One announcement to make at the start of this meeting, to inform relatives that Isaac has retired from his role of Lead Nurse in Askham Place. Shainy Mathew has been promoted to this role – she is known to many relatives having been part of the nursing team for many years. We are pleased to have been able to promote from within into the Lead role.

Feedback or questions:

Question received about access to chiropody; this will be addressed by the Lead Nurse in Hall.

C-19 Update:

Current status at Askham we are pleased to report is that we have zero confirmed positive cases amongst staff and residents at present. We have had a few false alarms recently among staff, who have received positive results from the LFT tests that are being done twice weekly. It serves as a good reminder to us that the virus is still out there and that precautions continue to be required. In all cases where we have had a positive LFT, visits have been paused, relevant staff have isolated, and PCRs have been completed. On receipt of the negative PCR, visits resumed and isolation ended.

The numbers of staff that remain unvaccinated continues to drop. We have had some good results this week with a few staff who were strongly against the vaccine have now had their first dose – we are very proud of them for taking this step. We continue to encourage those who have yet to take up the vaccine. The law making the vaccine mandatory will impact those staff who have not been vaccinated by 16th September so we are working hard to support them before this date comes around. New residents admitted to Askham are being offered the vaccine too if they haven’t already had it.

Visitors Policy:

This is the key area of interest for many on this call. We continue to be guided by a balance of risk as well as facilitating access wherever we can. We are conscious that we now have to find ways to ‘live with the virus’ and put in place safety measures accordingly. The survey results were helpful and we were pleased that many of you understood the need for some continued access control with regards to visiting. Government guidance gives discretion to care providers to determine what works best for those in our care and this has also helped us define an approach which is as person centred as possible.

We propose that from 2nd August we remove the cap on the length of visits and on the frequency of visits. Pre booking will continue to be required, as will evidence of a negative LFT on the day of the visit. We will continue to check temperature on arrival and we would expect visitors to continue to wear PPE and limit their close contact. We ask that doors and windows are kept open and we will no longer supervise visits, and will be happy to welcome groups of up to five people from one household to visit a resident at any one time. Of the group of visitors, at least one of those people ought to have attended the Infection Control training provided by Michelle. The others ideally should have watched a short information video about our Infection Control policies. Michelle will run the training session once a fortnight for any family members to sign up and attend.

A question was raised about a specific scenario of a family member visiting from afar. This will be picked up outside of the meeting and a visit facilitated in the safest way possible.

A question was raised about whether families can bring in home cooked food. We will accept this.

A question was raised about whether Askham can continue to provide the boxes of 25 tests for relatives. Unfortunately we have been asked not to distribute these to families now that they are available locally from pharmacies or other places. If you struggle we can provide a test on arrival however this should be the exception not the rule.

A question was raised about how long this policy will stand for. We will continue to monitor the situation at least monthly. Things will change quickly if we had a positive case on site or if we saw risks increase with for example new variants or high case numbers. In terms of easing the policy further, we will review this month to month and will be guided by the wider context of how the virus is evolving and the risk to residents that the virus poses.

Compliance:

CQC are now operating again in the normal way, not just focusing on IPC inspections. Their approach to inspections continues to start with collecting data before coming out in person. This includes looking at our website, looking at the formal notifications we submit, reaching out to relatives, as well as sending us a questionnaire to complete. We have had this questionnaire for Grove so we expect a visit from the inspector imminently. The Local Authority are also recommencing their monitoring visits and we are expecting a visit to Hall and House shortly. No other compliance matters to report.

Recruitment:

We are recruiting heavily at the moment and have had a few successful candidates join us who are new to care. We always welcome word of mouth recommendations though so any support from family members to encourage people to apply for a role at Askham would be most welcome.

Training:

Staff are now training together in person at Askham Centre which we are very pleased about. We hope this will continue. We have also extended our mandatory training courses to include Oral Health, Choking, and Dysphasia.

Activities:

This is the fun part of the meeting. Activities team have been doing a wonderful job through the pandemic and are now able to start doing more group activities which is great to see and is being enjoyed by all. We have celebrated with beer, chocolate, pizza and much more of late. Hydration stations were set up with fruit and drinks in the recent hot weather. The cultural day, usually held in the Function Suite for all to attend, took place in each home this year and enjoyed by all. Staff and residents sampled food from different parts of the world and enjoyed the traditional dress as well.  We have the Askham Olympics coming up as well where residents will be encouraged to participate in whatever way they can. There will also be an Askham bake off where each home’s cooking club will compete.

AOB:

A comment made to thank all staff for their hard work over recent weeks and months, especially at times when staff numbers may have been depleted. A thank you on behalf of all relatives.