What are we Doing to Keep our Clients and Team Safe?
There is regular guidance coming from the government and our National Office on what actions we should be taking to keep our clients and team members as safe as we can.
Some of the actions we already have in place include:
- We have very sadly cancelled all our community events
- Our CareGivers are being extra vigilant with hand washing before and after every care visit and during if required
- We have small teams of CareGivers visiting each client – keeps contact to a minimum
- We have postponed all non-essential meetings and visitors to our office
- Our office team is geared up for partial home working to reduce the risk in the office
- We have Covid-19 testing kits on order
- We have sourced additional PPE (protective equipment) to arrive before stocks run out
- We have placed additional PPE in clients homes as back-up for CareGivers
- We have added tasks onto our digital care planning that records if a CareGiver has washed their hands on entry and departure
- We have purchased individual thermometers and will be adding tasks for CareGivers to record their temperature on each visit
- For our clients – can you please ensure that soap and paper towels are available for handwashing.
What are we Doing to Keep our Services Going?
I am so proud of our team, they are stepping up to this challenge and as ever going the extra mile to ensure our clients are cared for. However, we are anticipating that some of our team may not be able to work due to possible school closures (more on this below), self-isolation or feeling unwell.
- School Closure – it is our current understanding that our CareGivers will be classified as Key-Worker, and the schools will remain open for their children. We may still have some who are required to self-isolate due to a family member having symptoms.
- We have lobbied local government to encourage schools to remain open for children of Health and Social Care workers
- Encouraged team members to practice good infection control measures at home as well as at work
- We are stepping up recruitment to increase our capacity.
If and when we do have team members unable to work, we are prepared to adopt some of the following actions:
- Many of the team have already offered to work extra hours if needs be
- The office team can step in and do care visits if needed
- We could ask clients to reduce the length of some visits
- We could prioritise our most vulnerable clients with reducing visits to our most independent clients
- We could ask family members of clients to step in with some support to free up some of our care team
- We could use a volunteer taskforce for our Companionship calls
- We are working to recruit additional CareGivers to help cover all eventualities.
Business Impact
It is a challenging time for all businesses. For some, the impact of the social change caused by CoronaVirus may push them too far and they will go bust. For others, they are seeing an uplift in trade which comes with its own challenges. For us here at Right at Home, we are not yet sure what the impact will be. We are expecting an increase in demand as more people are asked to isolate themselves in their own homes and we want to be able to help as many people as we can. What we do know is that our services will continue and we’ll be supporting our clients throughout this difficult time.
Whatever the outcome, there is going to be a lot of change. People will lose loved ones, jobs will change, habits will change. I just hope that we will see more and more of the positive side of humanity with communities coming together to help one another rather than the frantic scenes of panic buying.
If you would like to get involved with our Right at Home family, either as a client or as one of our fantastic CareGivers, then do please get in touch.
