Keeping Safe with Bristol Care Homes
Throughout the Covid pandemic our care teams have worked diligently to ensure the safety of our residents. We set ourselves two targets which continue to be our overall aim–
i) to ensure that our residents are safer from the risk of infection than if they are in any other location
ii) to ensure that any residents who did become infected had the highest chance of recovery.
We have now been infection-free for some time, and our residents are all fully vaccinated with the vast majority of our staff having either received the vaccine or booked in to do so.
We have ensured that we are in line with Government guidance on care homes during the pandemic and as such at present we have the following measures in place.
Infection Control
We have excellent infection control measures in place. These have been reviewed and tested by Public Health England and the CQC who have both confirmed that the measure we have are of a high standard. We have a large stock of PPE in place for our staff and visitors to use to prevent any transmission
Isolation
It has previously been the case that new residents have needed to isolate in their rooms for 14 days on admission. However we are really pleased that the guidance has now been updated which means that any new residents coming from the community, for example your own home, will not need to isolate on admission as long as you have had a negative covid test. The only new residents who need to isolate from now on are those coming in from Hospital.
Visiting
Every resident is now able to have up to 5 named visitors with which they are able to have ‘closer contact visits’. This means that they are able to have closer contact in the form of holding hands etc with their visitors provided they have completed lateral flow tests and wear the required PPE. The only time this is ever suspended is if we are unfortunate enough to experience an outbreak of Covid infections. Visits are still managed in terms of numbers at one time and numbers overall as we do still need to ensure we are controlling the numbers coming in for infection control purposes.
Essential Care Givers
Every resident is now able to nominate one essential care giver. This is a friend or relative who can come into the home and visit more regularly and for longer periods with the resident providing some more consistent and closer support for their wellbeing. Essential care givers do need to be subject to the same testing as our members of staff which is three times per week, although we encourage this to be managed at home before you come into the home. This type of visiting is limited to only person per resident and does not get suspended in the event of an outbreak of infections in the home.
Out of home visits
Residents are now able to visit with family out of the home, either at home or in public places. A full risk assessment will be completed for each visit out.
We hope this gives you all the confidence that we are able to keep you safe and maintain high quality of life when you come to live in our homes.
Full guidance is available at the following link
