Telephone: 020 8222 7800
17.05.21
Dear Relatives, Friends and Next of Kin,
I am pleased to advise that the Nursing Centre continues to have NO positive tested patients and that there have been no further cases of COVID detected amongst our staff teams across the last 102 days.
Our visiting scheme, introduced on 04.04.21 has been working well, and I am grateful to the majority of families and friends who have worked with us to ensure that the risk of transmission from an ongoing pandemic remains as low as possible.
However – we should remember that the risks remain, and that the ongoing risk from variants of concern (VOC) are high and that our residents are amongst the most vulnerable to transmission and infection.
From May 17th 2021 – the scheme will provide opportunities for visits to be conducted in line with Central Government guidance – which allows 5 x named and consistent individuals to visit residents at the Nursing Centre.
Our current and revised visiting policy is available HERE for your information.
In line with current government guidance:
To enable us to manage the required test processes efficiently we will continue to manage the system by means of pre booked test slots.
There will be 8 test slots available per hour between the hours of 10am and 6pm (64 test sessions per day) Monday – Sunday each week.
Please contact our reception team on 0208 222 7800 (option 2) to make a test booking.
Please be reminded that the guidance only provides for 5 named individuals to become visitors. Please do not ask our staff to ‘swap’ names for any reason as the Government guidance does not permit us to do so. You will appreciate that we do not wish to jeopardise all visits by breaching the rules for any one family.
There is now further guidance on visits and outings outside of the Nursing Centre – as follows:
Visits out of of the nursing centre
Even as vaccine coverage increases, there are still risks involved in visits out. It’s important that care homes, residents, family and friends take steps to manage and mitigate these risks.
In some cases, where the risks involved are high and the visit cannot be avoided (for example, involving an overnight stay in a hospital), this will mean that a resident making a visit out of the care home must self-isolate for 14 days on their return.
This is to ensure that, in the event they have unknowingly become infected while out of the home, they minimise the chances of passing that infection on to other residents and staff.
There are certain types of activity where the risks are inherently lower and these can be supported without the need for self-isolation on return:
All precautions relating to COVID-19 including social distancing should be followed while out of the care home.
The guidance remains that residents who make a visit out and where the nursing centre risk assessment indicates that the risk of infection cannot be sufficiently mitigated should self-isolate for 14 days on return.
At this time, based on clinical advice, this means that care home residents should self-isolate for 14 days when they return from overnight stays or from outside visits that carry a high risk of transmission and infection of other residents and staff at the nursing centre.
Each situation of this type will be considered in its own right and be subject to a risk assessment to determine if the resident is required to isolate on return to the nursing centre or not.
Steve Winter
Centre Director