Nottinghamshire County Council says care homes now epicentre for battle against Covid-19

The main focus for the battle against coronavirus has shifted from hospitals to care homes, the leader of adult social care in Nottinghamshire has said
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She said staff were still seeing huge challenges, but that signs for optimism were there, and that expertise was growing in care homes about infection control, and how to manage people with symptoms.

Melanie Brooks, director of adult social care at Nottinghamshire County Council,said the change in focus to care homes was welcome and has brought significant improvements with it.

One care home company singled out for praise was Church Farm Care.

Nottinghamshire County Council says care homes are now where the epicentre of the Covid-19 battle liesNottinghamshire County Council says care homes are now where the epicentre of the Covid-19 battle lies
Nottinghamshire County Council says care homes are now where the epicentre of the Covid-19 battle lies

Thanks to having plans in place early, and obtaining a ready supply of PPE, in one of its four care homes, it has had 13 residents who have contracted the virus and then recovered, without the spread affecting the rest of the home.

Mrs Brooks said: “There’s been a lot of national attention about care homes being the new risk.

“There’s now Office for National Statistics (ONS) data about care home deaths, so we’ve now got the visibility of care home deaths in the county, and there’s new Public Health England measures and guidelines about how to support care homes with infection control.

The NHS is responsible for that, so that’s really good news.

“I think some of our care homes are not experienced in infection control so they need that daily support, and that’s been really helpful.

“We’ve had some really good stories, one being Church Farm, about how they’ve been caring for people who’ve been tested positive for covid, recovered, and then managed to contain the spread of infection in the home, so we’ve had a lot of good news stories.

“I think a lot of what’s out there is about how tough it is, and it is really tough supporting people who are ill, supporting people who are dying is really hard work and it’s relentless for care homes.

“But we are starting to see some of this positivity and support happening.”

Patrick Atkinson, owner of Church Farm Care, said: “The process has been that we’ve isolated anyone with any symptoms very quickly, whether that be in their rooms or in a lounge area.

“Early on we bought PPE, we’ve had that since very early on in the crisis, we’ve never had a day when we haven’t had PPE.

“It was a challenge, but we got it, we made it our priority.

“Some of it, to be honest, we had to pay over the price for, but we got it and that’s what was important.

“We had our own covid procedure that we wrote, that was based on this zoning idea, historically from SARS.

“Prior to the outbreak we’d discussed it with the team, so we knew this was our plan and we could act very quickly.

“Some of our clients have dementia, so they don’t understand social distancing.

“It’s not human for any of us (social distancing), none of us expect it, we like to touch and hug our children, it’s what we do as people, so that’s been the biggest challenge.”

Mr Atkinson said staff created makeshift ward areas in lounges, with space for six people, so residents could self-isolate in there.

Rotating teams of staff then work only in the ‘ward’, minimising the spread of infection to other areas of the home.

He added: “The staff volunteered to do that, and they need all the praise in the world.

“We’ve had fantastic support from our GPs, and the NHS have been amazing, as everyone knows.”

Mrs Brooks continued: “Care homes are individual businesses in their own right, but we’re there for back up if it’s needed.

“Managing multiple people being ill, or managing infection, particularly if staff are unwell, can be a real workforce concern.

“The shift of focus from hospitals to care homes has been quite welcome for us, we knew that care homes had the potential to be the site of many infections, because of the people that live within them.

“So we’ve always been concerned about that, but I think that attention nationally has moved from the need to ensure we’ve got critical care capacity, to ensuring we’ve got capacity in our care homes, and that’s been a welcome shift for me, that change of emphasis.”

“The NHS has invested heavily in increasing its capacity, so we’re supporting them in freeing up capacity and making sure we get people out of hospital quickly.

“They’ve been on a recruitment drive, and we recruited 120 carers from our drive, so it’s about making sure that capacity goes to where it’s needed, which at the moment the epicentre of the incident is care homes. “