Take a look at everything we have done, to steer us all as safely, responsibly and positively through a global pandemic.
Since early 2020, like everyone else, our way of life has changed. These have been unprecedented times, and they’ve had a profound impact on all of our lives. From the get go though, we implemented a comprehensive contingency plan to tackle the pandemic and how it impacted our homes, that was robust, well thought-out and decisive.
At the heart of that plan, was the immediate and unequivocal priority to protect our residents and staff, whilst being sympathetic to the duty of care we also have for their families and loved ones.
Working together as a team, often in difficult situations and with a huge amount of resilience, determination and strong leadership.
“I’d like to say thank you to our residents and their loved ones, who’ve all shown a great deal of patience, understanding and support during these difficult times.”
Rachel Beckett
Wellburn Chairman
Reacting decisively and swiftly
As soon as it became clear that COVID-19 was something we needed to take seriously, we moved fast to implement a contingency plan. We were one of the first care home providers in the country to take the incredibly difficult decision to close our doors to visitors.
Taking that decision swiftly allowed us to closely monitor those coming in and out of our homes, preventing any cross-contamination between our homes and those on the outside. We also stopped the use of all agency staff, who would normally crossover between 2 or 3 homes at a time, and stopped all cross over staffing in general, keeping all staff to one home only. Senior Management and all of Head Office staff began working remotely from their homes, carrying out all necessary training sessions via Zoom.
We also invested heavily in safety equipment, such as, the ozone ‘Eclipse Pro’ machines and Gateway Personal Protection tunnels, which helps to keep our homes virus free, as well as conducting regimented infection control measures across all our homes.
Each staff member also has their temperature taken before they start their shift, and any who is showing signs of symptoms are sent home to isolate, with immediate effect.
Communication
Once we made the decision to close our doors to visitors, we understood immediately that we needed to find solutions to the problems that decision would create. We moved fast to introduce a raft of different touch points to help us, our residents and their loved one stay connected, receive the latest news and important information. It was also extremely important to strike a balance between keeping residents’ families as connected as possible, whilst allowing staff inside our homes, to be able to concentrate on what they do best - caring for our residents. We found a way, by introducing amongst other things:
• An online booking system for Skype, Facetime or regular calls between residents and their loved ones.
• A dedicated newsletter emailed out to every residents’ family and loved ones on a regular basis.
• A weekly Zoom call, hosted by each Home Manager for residents families and loved ones.
• A dedicated hotline, allowing residents families and loved ones to get the latest information first hand.
• Regular Vimeo video updates from our chairman and every Home Manager.
• Postcards encouraging regular communication between residents and their families and loved ones.
Visiting
One of the toughest things about the past year has been the lack of visitors in our homes. Our homes are usually busy environments with family members coming and going as much as they like, which had to come to a halt at the start of the pandemic to provide as much protection to our residents and staff as possible. In these extraordinary circumstances, we had to think outside the box to provide a safe way for our residents to see their loved ones.
We built visitor pods across our homes, which allowed families and loved ones to visit our residents for the first time since lockdown. With two separate doors to enter, the pods have a partitioned glass screen, meaning they could talk and sit with each other, worry-free. Seeing the effects this made to our residents, our construction team went on to help provide pods for countless other care homes up and down the country.
As we are currently on the path out of the pandemic, our visiting policy now allows visitors to enter the home. A resident can have a visit from anyone they wish, as long as we keep to a maximum of 2 people at a time and after producing a negative rapid test and wearing the correct PPE, to visit their loved one. Residents’ loved ones are also able to take their family members out of the home after producing a negative rapid test, competing our Trips Out declaration form and complying with government restrictions whilst outside of the home. We are also making use of our pods and gardens for visits too for those who feel more comfortable with these types of visits.
Other things we’re doing
Like all of us, we’ve had to find ways to adapt the way we normally do things. Activities play a big part of life in our homes, so when we closed our doors to visitors, we had to get creative. We invested in Interactive ‘Magic’ Tables for all our homes, which not only have dementia-friendly games and apps, but can also be used for drawing, listening to music, watching videos and even for video calls with loved ones. We made use of video communication platforms, like Skype and Zoom, not only for our residents to speak to their family members, to enhance our activity programmes, tuning into live sessions of performers, entertainers, church services and exercise classes, who’d normally come into our homes.
And lockdown didn’t stop us getting residents from all our homes together, virtually for bingo and quizzes hosted on Skype to encourage our residents to get moving and thinking and communicating with each other!
We are pleased we are now in a position where we are able to allow external entertainers to come inside the home to perform for our residents. All external entertainers must comply with rules around vaccination and complete lateral flow rapid tests prior to coming into the building.
Residents can also again enjoy their regular bus trips out, visiting their favourite local hotspots. Relatives of residents’ can also take their loved ones out of the home for a day, subject to completing rapid lateral flow tests and a risk assessment.”
“I'd also like to pay tribute to the continued commitment, bravery and determination, shown by every single one of my wonderful team.”
Rachel Beckett
Wellburn Chairman
Not all heroes wear capes
Our staff have been doing such an incredible job on the frontline, showing so much dedication and commitment, during extremely challenging times. Always putting the safety and happiness of our residents first, we’re acutely aware that, especially during the pandemic, our staff need to look after themselves too, particularly in regards to their physical and mental wellbeing.
As a company, we always strive to create an environment to support our staff, but during these challenging times, we’ve implemented more initiatives than ever. For example, to show our gratitude for all their hard work, we hosted ‘Staff Appreciation Week’, a week-long celebration for our staff full of treats and tokens of gratitude for all their hard work. Working with our in-house trainer and psychologist we also created ‘Wellbeing Week’, ensuring our staff know what actions to take or who to turn to when they feel unsettled or anxious and providing all staff with both internal and external contacts for them to reach out to if needed.
Following the success of the wellbeing initiatives we have carried out since the start of the pandemic, we now also have an exciting 365 Wellbeing Programme which has been received very well by staff and means they have something exciting to look forward to regularly.
Showing We Care
We recognised early on that care staff up and down the country, along with all the other frontline workers, were the true heroes of the pandemic. We wanted to do something positive and exciting, for them and for every single person working in the care sector, who have been tirelessly and bravely putting themselves in harm’s way, day in day out, to protect our most vulnerable.
So we created the We Care badge, with the aim of the campaign to let each and every person working in care homes and the care sector know just how much they’re appreciated. We teamed up with The Care Workers Charity, which provide support to care workers by providing grants and advice, to raise over £10,000.
The badge attracted a lot of attention in the press and caught the eye of some well known celebrities like Alan Shearer and Sam Fender, and even made an appearance on Channel 4’s Celebrity Gogglebox.
With the We Care Badge campaign, we have now been awarded as Winners at the Great British Care Awards for the North East in The Care Innovator Award.
Staying safe, staying vigilant
Even though we are well on our way back to some sort of normality, the care sector is still extremely vulnerable, which means we’re continuing to practice strict safety measures. We’re also testing all residents and staff on a regular basis, and with the majority of our staff and residents now fully vaccinated, there is finally light at the end of the tunnel.
