What's New Bulletin 64 - 21 October 2021
This is the sixty fourth 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
- UPDATED GUIDANCE Vaccination of people working or deployed in care homes: operational guidance (information for all care homes)
- ACTION REQUIRED Care Homes Business Continuity - Deployment of Vaccinated Staff (information for Birmingham Care Homes)
- UPDATED GUIDANCE Coronavirus (COVID-19) testing for adult social care settings (information for all providers)
IN OTHER NEWS
- Do you want to receive email alerts when new referrals are distributed through the CareMatch Portal? – how to check your email alerts are switched on (information for all Birmingham contracted providers)
- Guidance on meeting people's eye health needs (information for all providers)
- Disabled Facilities Grants (DFG), Staying Independent at Home – Birmingham City Council would like your views (information for home support providers)
- Better Security, Better Care (information for all providers)
- Care Quality Commission (CQC) new regulatory model (information for all providers)
COVID 19 RELATED INFORMATION
1.UPDATED GUIDANCE Vaccination of people working or deployed in care homes: operational guidance (information for all care homes)
This guidance covers the requirement that from 11 November 2021, anyone working or volunteering in a care home will need to be fully vaccinated against coronavirus (COVID-19), unless exempt.
The following sections have been updated; ‘If an individual has been vaccinated outside of the UK’, ‘Groups that can get a medical exemption’, ‘How to demonstrate your vaccination status’ and ‘Exemptions’ with more information on temporary and formal medical exemptions.
You can read the full guidance below:
Vaccination of people working or deployed in care homes: operational guidance
2.ACTION REQUIRED Care Homes Business Continuity - Deployment of Vaccinated Staff (information for Birmingham Care Homes)
Thank you to the majority of Care Homes that have already sent their business continuity plans to the Commissioning team. The focus now on is reviewing these plans and working with providers to ensure they have fully considered the impact and risk to their organisations of the new Regulations and that robust mitigations have been identified and activated where needed. Please continue to engage with Commissioners who may be asking for further information or clarification around the information submitted so that we can be assured of the above and also so we can offer support where we can.
For those providers that are yet to share their business continuity plans, we strongly encourage you to review your current plans in line with the guidance we have circulated and submit them to your Commissioner for review as soon as possible. If you don't have copies of the guidance, please email marketintelligence@birmmingham.gov.uk
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 share with us that they have carefully considered these points and have robust plans in place. To try and simplify this process for you, the table and guidance attached, highlights the information we need and the key questions we are asking that you have carefully considered and documented.
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.UPDATED GUIDANCE Coronavirus (COVID-19) testing for adult social care settings (information for all providers)
This guidance outlines the COVID-19 testing available for testing staff, residents and visitors for all adult social care settings. It has been updated to reflect policy has now changed regarding self-isolation for fully vaccinated individuals following contact with a COVID-19 positive case. References to lockdown also removed to reflect the easing of national COVID-19 restrictions. The full guidance can be found below:
Coronavirus (COVID-19) testing for adult social care settings
IN OTHER NEWS …………………
4.Do you want to receive email alerts when new referrals are distributed through the CareMatch Portal? – how to check your email alerts are switched on (information for all Birmingham contracted providers)
It has been a while since many of you started using the CareMatch Portal. You may not remember that there is an option to switch on and off email alerts so that you are notified when a new referral is distributed through the CareMatch Portal. Instructions on how you can check if your notifications are switched on can be found on pages 22 and 23 of the Provider User Guide.
Other useful information on how you can manage users and their access to the CareMatch Portal within your organisation can be found on page 41 of the Provider User Guide. Please contact marketintelligence@birmingham.gov.uk if you need further guidance on how to change your settings.
The full user guide can be found below:
CareMatch Portal Provider User Guide
5.Guidance on meeting people's eye health needs (information for all providers)
New guidance has been published from the Primary Eyecare Sector’s Domiciliary Eyecare Committee. This guidance covers how they will meet the needs of people who are unable to leave home unaided owing to physical or mental illness or disability are potentially at higher risk of eye disease and vision problems than the general population. You can read the full guidance on how these providers will support the eye health of people you may provider services to below:
Meeting eye health needs of people who cannot leave home due to COVID-19 or flu
6.Disabled Facilities Grants (DFG), Staying Independent at Home – Birmingham City Council would like your views (information for home support providers)
Birmingham City Council has a statutory obligation to deliver the Disabled Facilities Grants (DFG) to protect and assist its vulnerable citizens who require aids and adaptation in their homes. These adaptations can be in the form of major or minor works to install changes to the home in order to enable citizens to live safely, independently and with dignity in their community. As care providers you are more likely to know early that there are issues in someone’s home affecting their ability to remain healthy and happy in the community.
In co-production with our citizens we are developing a Staying Independent at Home (SIAH) Policy and we would welcome your views from a carer going into citizens perspective. We are keen to understand what you already know is available and what you think we could do better in the future to better support our citizens to remain at home. Please complete the questionnaire below:
Birmingham staying independent at home - Your Views
7.Better Security, Better Care (information for all providers)
October is cyber security awareness month and the Better Security, Better Care team at Digital Social Care would like to help you keep data secure. Having good cyber security arrangements in place will keep your health and care records safe as well as protect against losing critical data.
You can access free support from the Digital Social Care website, as well as read their guidance and toolkit to check your data and cyber security arrangements. To report cyber attacks contact Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040
Better Security, Better Care - Digital Social Care website
Data Security and Protection Toolkit
8.Care Quality Commission (CQC) new regulatory model (information for all providers)
To deliver the ambitions of their new strategy the CQC are developing a new regulatory model through partnership and engagement with health and social care providers and professionals, people who use services and stakeholders. You can keep up to date with developments in the following ways;
- In a new blog Joyce Frederick, Director of Policy and Strategy, updates on this work, how your feedback has shaped what the new model looks like and what we'll be doing next. You can read the blog below.
- You can also hear more on the development of the new regulatory model in the latest episode of the CQC podcast series where Heads of Policy, Dave James and Amanda Hutchinson, reflect on the latest thinking on evidence categories and outputs from assessments. Listen now on Soundcloud or wherever you get your podcasts.
- Watch the adult social care providers webinar for an update on the CQC’s current approach to monitoring providers.
For opportunities to help the CQC coproduce how they will implement their strategy, sign up to their digital engagement platform and look out for more information in the CQC bulletins. You can also feedback your thoughts on our new strategy right now
Ian Trenholm, Chief Executive, talks about CQC's new strategy
Developing the new regulatory model - Soundcloud
Developing the new regulatory model - Apple, Spotify, Tune in & Stitcher