Here at Abbeyfield we have been watching the coronavirus situation unfold very carefully, as we are well away of how this global pandemic can affect us and our residents.
Care homes are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus spread, not only because we have lots of elderly people staying with us, but also because of the number of people who come and go to these places.
On average we have close to 100 visitors everyday. These people can range from family members who are visiting people in the care home, nurses and doctors who are treating patients to delivery people dropping of essential items like medicine and food.
With all of this coming and going, we have to be very careful of how we control the situation to make sure we do not get any of our residents sick with the virus.
We have ben watching the figures very carefully, and the most recent stats are actually very alarming indeed.
The death toll is likely to reach around 60,000 people in the UK from coronavirus, and of this number, 34,000 are expected to be from care home residents.
This is over 50%, which is an astonishing number and one that were are very worried about.
We have decided to keep our measures very tight in our home, even as the countries lockdown policies lift.
We have put in a number of no contact measure in our home, including:
- No contact hand offs with delivery people
- Essential deliveries only
- Essential doctor and nurse call outs only
- Ongoing testing is in place for all residents and staff to make sure that if anyone does have the virus that we can contain it properly
- We have increased our daily cleaning routine to over double the original cleaning, which was already very extensive
- Making sure our ventilation systems are working and ensuring a fresh supply of air into the building at all times