What's New Bulletin 63 - 14 October 2021
This is the sixty third weekly 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.
COVID RELATED INFORMATION
- Message from the Department of Health and Social Care, New care staff winter jab resources ready for download (information for all providers)
- ACTION REQUIRED Care Homes Business Continuity - Deployment of Vaccinated Staff (information for Birmingham Care Homes)
- ACTION REQUIRED - Infection Control and Testing Fund Extension (July to September 2021) – final spend return required (information for providers with CQC locations in Birmingham)
- Capacity Tracker update for Care Home staff regarding COVID exemption self-certification and those vaccinated abroad (information for all care homes)
- Message from the Department of Health and Social Care, PPE supplies: update your Capacity Tracker information daily (information for all providers)
- REMINDER Mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for frontline care and health staff consultation – deadline for responses 22 October 2021 (Information for all home support, supported living, extra care sheltered housing providers)
IN OTHER NEWS
- REMINDER Care Home IT infrastructure and connectivity questionnaire – deadline extension 19 October (Information for Birmingham and Solihull care homes)
- Open Book 2021 exercise (information for all providers contracted with Birmingham City Council)
- World Mental Health Day: Reflections from the Chief Social Worker for Adults (Information for all providers)
- Skills for Care State of the adult social care sector and workforce in England report 2021 (information for all providers)
- Digital Social Care (information for all providers)
COVID 19 RELATED INFORMATION
1.Message from the Department of Health and Social Care, New care staff winter jab resources ready for download (information for all providers)
Two new Q&A leaflets have been issued, focusing on COVID-19 booster and flu vaccinations this winter. You can download all care staff winter vaccine materials below, including posters, social media graphics and stickers right now.
A new winter vaccines communications toolkit is also available, featuring case studies, expert blogs and a range of materials to promote flu and COVID-19 boosters.
2.ACTION REQUIRED Care Homes Business Continuity - Deployment of Vaccinated Staff (information for Birmingham Care Homes)
We are currently contacting all Birmingham care homes who don’t have 100% of their staff double vaccinated. The purpose of this is to ensure you have robust continuity plans in place before the new Regulations commence in November and also so we can offer support where we can. We have already delivered a number of Business Continuity Planning (BCP) briefings and also provided a BCP template in case that assists. However, from the Plans and feedback received to date, we want to be really clear about what we are asking.
As you are already required to have a detailed Business Continuity Plan in place, we are not asking for these to be re-written or the format changed. At this point, we do not need to consider your wider continuity risks such as fire, IT failure etc. What we are looking for is written confirmation that you have assessed the impact of the new Regulations on your service, that you have identified robust actions to reduce the risk to the service and that you have identified any further support or actions that need to be taken. There is no set format for this, but we do need homes to have carefully considered these points and have robust plans in place. To try and simplify this process for you, a table and guidance, which has been circulated to providers, highlights the information we need and the key questions we are asking that you have carefully considered and documented. If you don't have copies of the table and guidance, please email marketintelligence@birmingham.gov.uk
I strongly encourage you to review your current plans in line with the attached guidance and submit to your Commissioner for review as requested. Please do get in touch with your Commissioner should you require any support with this and we will be happy to help.
Who to contact in the Commissioning Team
Many thanks in advance for your time and cooperation in helping us understand and plan for potential disruption across the care market.
3.ACTION REQUIRED - Infection Control and Testing Fund Extension (July to September 2021) – final spend return required (information for providers with CQC locations in Birmingham)
Further to the allocation of the Infection Control and Testing Fund Extension grants you are now required to declare how the grant funding has been spent. Please complete and submit the relevant online spend return form for each Birmingham based CQC registered location using the links below by 17 October 2021.
Care Homes spending report (July-September 2021)
Community Care spending report (July-September 2021)
To support you with this process details of the allocations have been circulated to providers. If you don't have a copy of the allocations, please email marketintelligence@birmingham.gov.uk
4.Capacity Tracker update for Care Home staff regarding COVID exemption self-certification and those vaccinated abroad (information for all care homes)
From 11 October the Capacity Tracker now captures additional information for Care Home staff and agency staff regarding COVID exemption self-certification and those staff that have been vaccinated abroad. Capacity Tracker guidance on how to complete the new vaccination information will be published shortly within the Resource Centre, What's New Section and a new notification posted on the Capacity Tracker message board when it becomes available. Please ensure you are regularly updating the vaccination questions in the Capacity Tracker as this data is used by Adult Social Care Staff and Health colleagues to target resources and assess risk.
Please ensure you are aware of the following when updating the Capacity Tracker;
- Please ensure information about Dose 1 and Dose 2 Covid vaccinations are not being entered into the Flu vaccines & Covid-19 Boosters questions in the Business Continuity pages by mistake.
- There is only the ability to input information for the first two doses of the Covid-19 Vaccination onto the Capacity Tracker. Anyone who may be immune-suppressed will be able to receive a third dose (this is different to the Booster). There is no space on the Capacity Tracker to add a third dose, due to the small number of people anticipated to be vaccinated three times. The Booster question should not include the third dose. People who receive three doses will also be offered a booster and only then should the information be inputted into the Booster question.
- A red warning pop-up box will now appear when providers have not entered any numbers in booster or flu vaccination fields. Providers will be asked to confirm this is correct by ticking a checkbox prior to saving the information.
Guidance on updating flu vaccinations, Covid vaccinations and boosters is available in the What's New section of the Resource Centre, once you have logged in to the Capacity Tracker. You can also contact the Capacity Tracker Support Team on 0191 691 3729 or email necsu.capacitytracker@nhs.net
5.Message from the Department of Health and Social Care, PPE supplies: update your Capacity Tracker information daily (information for all providers)
Some care providers are reporting personal protective equipment (PPE) supplies as ‘red’ on the capacity tracker, but are not actually short of stock. Please update the tracker at your earliest convenience if you are no longer experiencing PPE shortages.
Having problems updating? Use the online help function or contact the support team on
0191 691 3729 or email them at: necsu.capacitytracker@nhs.net. If you have any questions about using the PPE Portal, including ordering issues, contact our customer service team (7am-7pm, 7 days a week) on 0800 876 6802.
6.REMINDER Mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for frontline care and health staff consultation – deadline for responses 22 October 2021 (Information for all home support, supported living, extra care sheltered housing providers)
The Government is seeking views on plans for staff in health and care settings in England to be required to have COVID-19 and flu vaccines to protect vulnerable people. A six-week consultation has launched looking at whether requirements should apply for health and care workers (not just those working in care homes), those in contact with patients, and people receiving care
Consultation on mandatory vaccination for frontline health and care staff
It would mean only those who are fully vaccinated, unless medically exempt, could be deployed to deliver health and care services. The consultation will also seek views on whether flu vaccines should be a requirement for health and care workers.
Read the full consultation document and find out how to take part below:
Making vaccination a condition of deployment in the health and wider social care sector
IN OTHER NEWS……………
7.REMINDER Care Home IT infrastructure and connectivity questionnaire – deadline extension 19 October (Information for Birmingham and Solihull care homes)
We appreciate it is a busy time, but we are keen to look at ways that we, as health and social care partners, can support you with improving your care home’s connectivity. We are asking each care home in Birmingham to complete the below survey, which should take no more than 20 minutes. This will help us to understand how digitally connected the care home is and allow us to develop a programme of support from the NHS and local authorities that will help improve connectivity in the future. This will help all of us to take advantage of new technology and different ways of working and ensure we are prepared for these as they are developed and implemented.
Younger Adult homes have been asked to complete a similar questionnaire previously but please note there are additional questions and also you may have changed your connectivity arrangements as a result of Covid-19. We don’t have any information about IT infrastructure and connectivity in relation to Older Adult homes and we would very much like to hear from you on this subject. This information is being collected on behalf of the NHS, Birmingham City Council and Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council and will be shared with partners for the purpose of providing you with digital support now and in future.
The deadline for the survey has been extended to 19 October. The link to complete the survey is below
Care Homes Connectivity Survey
Many thanks in advance for your time.
8.Open Book 2021 exercise (information for all providers contracted with Birmingham City Council)
The deadline for submitting open book cost templates has now past. We want to take this opportunity to thank all care homes and community care locations which have taken the time and effort to take part in the exercise. The extensive process of analysing the returns will now begin – once this has been concluded we shall publish the results. Please be assured that any data published will be aggregated, anonymised, and that no location specific costs will be released.
9.World Mental Health Day: Reflections from the Chief Social Worker for Adults (Information for all providers)
The theme for this year's World Mental Health Day which took place on Sunday 10 October, was ‘Mental health in an unequal world’. This timely focus resonates particularly strongly with frontline health and care workers, supporting individuals and communities, deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lyn Romeo, Chief Social Worker for Adults, reflects on the speed with which social workers, alongside other frontline health and care professionals, have adapted their ways of working to support people's mental health.
Meanwhile, OHID recently launched the latest Every Mind Matters campaign to promote better mental health. Care colleagues needing wellbeing support can also visit Mental Health at Work's dedicated Our Frontline site, call 0300 303 4434 (8am to 8pm, 7 days a week), or text FRONTLINE to 85258. All services are offered in confidence by trained volunteers.
Lyn Romeo's blog on World Mental Health Day
Our frontline: Support for social care workers
10.Skills for Care State of the adult social care sector and workforce in England report 2021 (information for all providers)
Skills for care have launched their State of the adult social care sector and workforce in England report 2021.
The following link takes you to key findings, the report, an infographic and summaries;
The state of the adult social care sector and workforce in England
11.Digital Social Care (information for all providers)
Please find below a number of items relating to digital social care;
Reminder about the importance of using secure email accounts
All care providers should be using secure email accounts whenever personal information is included in emails. Providers without secure email accounts can get a free NHS mail account, but must first complete the Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT). Providers who already have NHS mail accounts must complete the DSPT annually to retain use of it. More information about NHS mail and DSPT, and help available to providers, can be found below
New support package for care providers to adopt digital social care records
A new partnership between NHSX and Digital Social Care has been formed to support the universal adoption of Digital Social Care Records.
Digital social care records enable improvements in the safety and quality of care. They facilitate better communication between adult social care and health settings and free up time spent by care workers and managers on administrative tasks.
The new national support offer includes masterclasses, buyer guidance, model contracts and template specifications. NHSX will also be supporting nine Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) from across the country to deliver small-scale pilots to help inform their plans for supporting the care sector in future years.
Visit the Digital Social Care or NHSX websites for more information.
Adopting digital care records - Masterclass series
Skills for Care - data security and protection lead role in social care
In order to meet the National Data Guardian’s 10 data security standards, social care organisations are strongly encouraged to have someone who is responsible for data security and protection, and who will champion the principles of good data protection. This person is called a Data Security and Protection Lead (DSPL). Skills for Care and the Institute for Public Care (IPC), as part of the Better Security, Better Care Programme, will be running an online webinar for providers of adult social care to highlight and explain this new role being introduced into the sector. The possible DSPL for an organisation should attend this webinar.