How Opal Care is Responding to Coronavirus (COVID-19)

As lockdown restrictions are gradually eased across the United Kingdom, safeguarding the health and wellbeing of our residents and teams remains our highest priority. With older people in care homes among the most vulnerable to contracting the COVID-19 virus, we have been taking preventative measures to protect those in our care and employment throughout the pandemic. This has included closing our care homes to all visitors.

Visiting restrictions are reviewed daily by our COVID-19 action team, and decisions are informed by national guidance, the UK Government COVID-19 alert levels, and an individual risk assessment of each home.

Following the release of the government’s guidance on visiting care homes during coronavirus, we wanted to let you know that the current visiting arrangements at each of our care homes have not changed.

Where possible, Safe Outside Visits can take place in a designated area of the garden dependent on the weather.

For the safety of everyone, outside visiting will only be possible in homes that have not had any cases of confirmed people with symptoms, or a positive test for the Coronavirus among either residents or staff within the last 28-day period.

The home manager will be in contact with you to confirm when their home qualifies for pre-booked outside visits under this arrangement.

Please download our guide to visiting our care home here.

Further criteria for these pre-booked visits include:

Your visit must be on an appointment-only basis and may last for a maximum of 1 hour. Please contact your loved one’s care home directly to book an appointment.
Not more than 1 named person may visit during the allocated appointment, and they must be over 18 years of age.
No more than 2 visits may take place at any one time to allow for a member of staff to supervise and assist where necessary.
Visits cannot be arranged for those who are in the High Risk – Extremely Clinically Vulnerable group at this time.
These arrangements are subject to cancellation at short notice if the situation changes and are at the absolute discretion of the Senior Management team.

In exceptional cases, such as when a resident is at the very end of life, an application may be made for special permission to enter the care home. Please contact the home manager directly to discuss this process and the conditions that must be observed for this to happen.

We are complying with the government’s advice in respect of the isolation requirements for both residents and staff. At the same time, our head office and management teams are also taking all the necessary precautions to delay the spread of this virus. This includes the provision of home-working where this is possible.

We will continue to review these steps daily and will update this webpage with our latest position.

What Will Happen During A Safe Outside Visit?

On arrival, we will check that you do not have Coronavirus symptoms – high temperature, new cough, or loss of sense of smell/taste.
You will be provided with PPE which must be worn at all times.
Your visit will take place in a designated outside area. A gazebo (open-sided tent) may provide shelter if the weather is unpredictable but this must not create an enclosed space.
You will access the outside visiting area via an agreed route specifically for visitors that avoids contact with residents and staff and minimises footfall through the home. Wherever possible visitors should not enter the home.
You will be asked to maintain social distancing of 2m at all times.
Visiting areas will be thoroughly cleaned before and after each visit.

Helping You Stay in Touch

Restricted visiting does not mean you have to lose touch. We have contingencies in place to ensure that you can still speak to, and in many cases still see relatives in our care during the outbreak. Through the use of phone and video calls, and where applicable a care home’s social media channels, we will ensure that you remain in contact with loved ones, and they remain in contact with the wider community.

We are also regularly writing to our residents’ relatives to keep them informed of any changes or updates to our plans.

The Steps That We are Taking to Protect our Residents and Teams

In addition to closing the home to visitors, we are also committed to:

Residents’ checked twice a day for temperature and symptoms.
Staff temperature and symptom check each day.
Ensuring our care teams are aware of the key symptoms of COVID-19 and how to monitor them in residents and team members.
Enforcing thorough hand washing and hand sanitisation station use.
Routine deep cleaning.

Admissions

We are continuing to accept new residents into our homes to support those in the community who are in need of care.

To safeguard the health and wellbeing of our residents and care teams, we will carry out pre-admission assessments remotely by telephone, video call, or email. This is to ensure that any new admissions are safe, appropriate, and do not put our residents and staff at risk.

The majority of our care homes are open to new admissions at this time, while others are working to support the NHS and local health and social care authorities at this unprecedented time of demand.

If you would like to make an enquiry please click here to find the contact details for your local care home.

What We Will Do Next

It has always been our view that getting out of lockdown would be more complicated than going into it. Clearly all residents in our homes are highly vulnerable, as are many of their loved ones. We need to ensure that the actions we take do not significantly increase the rate of infections.

We are acting on the advice and guidelines provided by Public Health England, Public Health Wales, and Health Protection Scotland. As the situation changes, we will constantly review and adapt our approach. We will update this page in line with the most current Government information and advice.

Further Questions

If you have any further questions about our response to COVID-19 or the situation at your local home, simply call the Care Home Manager or Person in Charge at the home.

We thank you for your co-operation and for considering the health and wellbeing of our residents at this time.

Useful Links

Want to know more about Covid-19? Please have a look at some of the links below.