What's New Bulletin 125 - 22 December 2022
This is edition 125 of the provider bulletin, containing information on guidance, procedures and new initiatives. Very urgent or high priority communications may still be issued on an ad hoc basis, but we will try to keep these to a minimum.
- Message from Professor Graeme Betts CBE, Strategic Director Adult Social Care (information for all providers)
- Chief Nurse for ASC and Chief Social Worker for Adults reflect on 2022 and send well wishes to the care sector (information for all providers)
- REMINDER Message from Department of Health and Social Care – updated guidance (information for all providers)
- Message from the Department of Health and Social Care: ASC Provisions Update on Enforcement (information for all providers)
- Capacity Tracker Monitoring flu and Covid-19 cases in the community (information for all providers)
- Project ECHO Core Competency Framework for Care Homes future dates (information for Birmingham and Solihull care homes)
- Urgent Community Response (UCR) (information for Birmingham and Solihull care homes)
- REMINDER Digitising Social Care and Technology Enabled Care Survey – completion date extended to 30 December 2022 (information for Birmingham Care Homes, Home Support, Supported Living and Extra Care providers)
1. Message from Professor Graeme Betts CBE, Strategic Director Adult Social Care (information for all providers)
To all our colleagues in the community and independent provider sector. I thank everyone for all their hard work and dedication through another challenging year. You have made an immense contribution to ensuring adults with disabilities and older people are achieving better outcomes and receiving quality services. We will continue to work closely with you in the coming year and believe this partnership will ensure we continue to serve our citizens well.
I hope you all get a chance to have a break over the festive season and we look forward to working with you in the New Year
Professor Graeme Betts CBE, Strategic Director Adult Social Care
2. Chief Nurse for ASC and Chief Social Worker for Adults reflect on 2022 and send well wishes to the care sector (information for all providers)
Chief Nurse for Adult Social Care, Deborah Sturdy, and Chief Social Worker for Adults, Lyn Romeo, look back on a busy, challenging and often surprising year for the care sector. Click their names to read seasonal messages of thanks to all care colleagues in England.
Both praise the dedication, compassion and resilience of colleagues across all settings, highlighting successes and giving credit where it's due to all those providing the best care to those who need it most. Have a healthy festive season and a Happy New Year!
3. REMINDER Message from Department of Health and Social Care – updated guidance (information for all providers)
Important changes to adult social care guidance in care settings have been recently introduced. These include the risk-based use of face masks, supporting care homes to undertake COVID-19 outbreak management risk-assessments and revised outbreak testing procedures for smaller care homes.
Adult social care guidance in care settings
More details can be found in a letter from Claire Armstrong, Director of Adult Social Care Delivery, the IPC COVID-19 supplement and testing guidance. Providers should adopt the updated guidance by 22 December, but can begin implementation sooner, if they feel able to do so.
Letter from Claire Armstrong, Director of Adult Social Care Delivery
Advice from the Birmingham Infection Prevention and Control Team
The Government guidance is open for the care homes to risk assess themselves, however the Birmingham Infection Prevention and Control Team would still recommend mask usage in the below situations;
- We advise for masks to continue to be worn for any resident with respiratory symptoms, suspected or confirmed COVID-19 or suspected or confirmed Flu.
- We would also advise mask wearing continues during outbreak situations and for staff who are known to be exposure contacts with someone they live with.
- We would advise encouraging visitors to wear masks in the same situations.
UPDATED GUIDANCE Infection prevention and control in adult social care: COVID-19 supplement (information for all providers)
This guidance sets out how to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in adult social care settings in England. It has been updated to reflect the announcement on use of masks: the guidance now recommends a risk-based approach. The guidance has also been updated to reflect changes to outbreak management in care homes that enable providers to initiate risk assessment themselves. Added a section covering if a member of staff is symptomatic or tests positive for COVID-19.
The full guidance can be found below
Infection prevention and control in adult social care: COVID-19 supplement
UPDATED GUIDANCE Coronavirus (COVID-19) testing for adult social care services (information for all providers)
This guidance outlines the COVID-19 testing available for staff, residents and visitors for all adult social care services. The following section has been updated; ‘COVID-19 testing in adult social care’, to streamline outbreak testing in small care homes in line with the latest evidence and to advise when rapid response testing is relevant for small care homes.
The full guidance can be found below:
Coronavirus (COVID-19) testing for adult social care services
UPDATED GUIDANCE COVID-19 PPE guide for adult social care services and settings (information for all providers)
This resource outlines personal protective equipment (PPE) advice for health and social care workers working in the community. The illustrative PDF version has been removed and a note added explaining that some parts of this guidance are out of date and in the process of being updated.
The full guidance can be found below:
COVID-19 PPE guide for adult social care services and settings
4. Message from the Department of Health and Social Care: ASC Provisions Update on Enforcement (information for all providers)
Unfortunately, guidance on the enforcement process will no longer be published in the week commencing 19 December as we are making some further changes in light of feedback from members of the Provider Data Advisory Group (PDAG). We now expect this to be published early in the New Year. As we have outlined in previous communications, financial penalties will normally be a last resort and the majority of the enforcement process will focus on what support we can give to help you meet the requirements of the Information Provisions.
5. Capacity Tracker Monitoring flu and Covid-19 cases in the community (information for all providers)
As you will be aware, while Covid-19 continues to circulate, we also expect to see a resurgence of flu and other respiratory viruses. This is likely to place significant additional pressure on the social care system, as well as on healthcare. For this reason, we ask for your continued support to keep data updated in the Capacity Tracker so that it can be relied on by NHS and Local Authority teams.
Specifically, we ask you to:
- Keep bed vacancy data up-to-date (ideally daily) to avoid duplication of daily 'ring arounds' by Local Authority discharge teams, and to support effective discharges of patients from hospital.
- Keep workforce data up to date so that our understanding of the recruitment and retention challenges in the sector are as accurate and timely as possible.
- Record the number of employees, and for care homes the number of residents, known to have received the flu vaccine and the Covid-19 Autumn Booster at least weekly.
- Record confirmed and suspected Covid-19 cases in staff and residents so we can monitor prevalence of the virus and target support appropriately.
Please take some time to review your information under the 'Provider Details' tab in the Capacity Tracker to ensure we have the correct details for people working in your organisation.
At this time of year it is useful to know if care homes are accepting admissions out of hours, so please be sure to add your admissions status when you update vacancies.
6. Project ECHO Core Competency Framework for Care Homes future dates (information for Birmingham and Solihull care homes)
This programme has been designed to provider Care Homes with a training and competency framework. The training will provide you with the skills to complete general healthcare tasks and supply you with a framework to guide and record your competency. For further information on what will be included on each day of the course, flyers have been circulated to provider. If you don't have copies, please email marketintelligence@birmingham.gov.uk
Please see below links to register. You can also register via the BSOL care homes App with the QR codes on a flyer which has been circulated. If you don't have a copy, please email marketintelligence@birmingham.gov.uk . The BSol Care Homes app can be accessed via the Health Zone UK container (simply type in to the search bar 123456 BSOL).
Please ensure you put the name of your care home on your registration.
Cohort 6 – Venue - Sutton Rose Care Home
Cohort 7 – Venue Moseley Hall Hospital (apart from day 3 venue is Saffron Centre)
Cohort 8 – Venue Moseley Hall Hospital
Cohort 9 – Venue Moseley Hall Hospital Day 1 then Saffron Centre Days 2&3
Cohort 10 – Venue The Saffron Centre
7. Urgent Community Response (UCR) (information for Birmingham and Solihull care homes)
UCR services are available to care home colleagues seven days a week 8am-8pm and can be contacted on: 0300 555 1919 option 2 (Birmingham), 0121 424 5666 (Solihull).
UCR offers an alternative to calling an ambulance and helps to avoid unnecessary hospital admission or readmission. The Birmingham & Solihull Urgent Community Response (UCR) team provides a rapid response service to people in their own surroundings within two hours. The service is available to patients aged 17+ with complex care needs or whose health has suddenly deteriorated through a fall, infection, frailty or exacerbation of an illness. UCR can accept referrals from primary care, NHS 111, A&E/same day emergency care, frailty assessment units, ambulance services, self-referral, carer referral or community-based health and social care, including care homes.
Reasons for referral: Falls, Skin change, Mobility, Observations, Pain, Fever, Breathing, Appetite, Behaviour, Elimination. See the link below for more information.
Urgent Community Response Service
8. REMINDER Digitising Social Care and Technology Enabled Care Survey – completion date extended to 30 December 2022 (information for Birmingham Care Homes, Home Support, Supported Living and Extra Care providers)
West Midlands Care Association (WMCA) are working in partnership with Birmingham City Council (BCC) to establish a local picture of Birmingham based care providers digital capability and use of Technology Enabled Care (TEC).
There will be various funding opportunities available to you as a care provider, to adopt one or more digital technologies to meet your future needs. The first step in this process is the completion of the following brief survey (which will only take a few minutes to complete).
It is important that all care providers complete this survey, for which we thank you in advance for your support. Regardless of where you are as an organisation in your transformation to delivering on digital enabled care and TEC this information is vital in helping the WMCA and BCC in determining what support care providers need. Should you have any questions about this survey please contact: Carol Leach, carol.leach3@nhs.net
The survey can be found below: