Latest News from Everycare
The Department for Health and Social Care has written to local authorities, care providers and directors of adult social services in England providing details on how all frontline social care workers will be contacted to receive their offer of vaccine by mid-February.
In her letter written by the care minister, Helen Whateley expresses her concern that ‘the social care sector is even more diverse than healthcare’ with a large number of different private companies and individual service users being used in the care sector.
In recognition of this, the department has produced a standard operating procedure (SOP), which provides detail on how community-based social care workers in JCVI priority group 2 will receive a vaccine.
This is to ensure all frontline workers who have close personal contact with those who are clinically vulnerable to COVID-19 are vaccinated by 15 February.
For more information visit the homecare.co.uk website
Since the start of the Covid19 pandemic the demand for live in care services has seen a huge increase as the elderly and their families consider which is the safest and most cost effective a way of caring for someone requiring care.
An extensive research project by the Live in Care hub (click here) has found that in the first wave of the recent Covid 19 pandemic the elderly in residential care homes were up to 170 times more likely to have died from the virus than those receiving live in care.
Many people are now rightly concerned about putting their relatives into residential care following the Covid 19 pandemic and live in care provides an affordable option. As a result enquiries for live in care have continue to rise.
If you are concerned about your current care provision and wish to consider a Live In Carer – please contact Everycare Cardiff on 02920 455300 or email cardiff@everycare.co.uk
Captain Sir Tom Moore has collaborated with Age UK and Cadbury’s ‘Donate Your Words’ campaign to encourage everyone in the UK to start a meaningful conversation with an older person to help tackle loneliness.
Captain Moore who first came into the spotlight when he raised over £32 million for the NHS by walking laps of his garden during lockdown earlier this year is launching a new podcast to tackle isolation among older people.
The podcast, called The Originals, is part of a campaign by charity Age UK and Cadbury which aims to inspire people up and down the country to have a meaningful conversation with an older person, with social isolation especially among the elderly worsening during the COVID-19 crisis.
Captain Moore said: “I hope The Originals podcast will help encourage everyone to start a proper conversation with an older person. We truly are the originals and we have more in common than you may think, we have hundreds of amazing tales just waiting to be told.”
For more information visit the homecare.co.uk website
The chief executive of United Kingdom Homecare Association (UKHCA) has criticised the government over the lack of testing and costs of PPE, accusing them of being ‘disinterested in the 715,000’ care workers during the pandemic.
In her open letter to Stuart Miller, director of Adult Social Care Delivery at the Department for Health and Social Care, Dr Jane Townson expresses her concerns with the lack of information to home care providers and how she is ‘frustrated by the focus of politicians on care homes,’ saying the only message for home care providers was to ‘follow government guidance on PPE’.
Her letter is in response to the missive from the Department for Health and Social Care warning care providers that the UK is experiencing a rise in confirmed COVID-19 cases.
She states: ‘If the government is serious about minimising the spread of COVID19 among the care workforce and those they support in communities, it needs to fully fund the cost of PPE for care workers and ensure there is availability and accessibility of antigen testing as required for the home care workforce as well as for those in care homes.’
Dr Townson has asked the government for an explanation into lack of testing after reports by officials to meetings UKHCA had attended made it clear ‘inadequate laboratory capacity for testing’ is the reason for a lower prioritisation of testing in homecare.
The government said UK laboratory daily testing capacity was more than 370,000 last week
She added routine testing is not available for home care workers in areas where there are lockdowns and it was ‘unacceptable’ some areas are ‘experiencing a fast and efficient service’ for testing while others are being directed hundreds of miles away and having to ‘wait days for results’.
For the full story visit the homecare.co.uk website.
