In addition, you will find on our Covid-19 page our latest letter to families, friends and essential carers, again of today’s date.

At Apple House care homes we want to assure you that we are working hard behind the scenes to keep safe the people entrusted to our care and our teams. PPE continues to be worn at all times in accordance with PHE best practice guidelines and we pay our team their full wages if they are called upon to isolate. We have collectively worked to reduce or eradicate staff movement between home ‘bubbles’ and are immensely proud of our teams for going above and beyond their normal working hours and duties to place a protective ring around each of our services, to keep others and themselves safe from Covid.

The vaccine roll-out is a monumental exercise, the likes of which has not been known in modern times. As yet we don’t know when our staff, or the people living in our services, will be called for their jab. But, we want to assure you that the work needed to ready us for our ‘turn’ is well underway. I applaud our local authority partners for their daily communication and the coordination looming to get the most vulnerable vaccinated, and ultimately you and us too. They never fail to keep us informed and to offer support to our sector.

Romaine, Director of Operations, attends weekly virtual meetings with the Clinical Commissioning Group and others in the varying care sectors, and yesterday, with Public Health England. We aspire to pioneer. We advocate for the people we support and keep updated with evolving guidance. We put forward ideas and action some of the ideas of others. Covid may have curbed life as we know it but our ambition is to lessen the impact on the people we support. To this aim we are managing to facilitate visiting, both at our homes in our new visiting pods, and at the homes of loved ones or community where possible and risk assessed.

Finally, thank you to every one of you who supports us – families, friends and professional colleagues, it’s really appreciated.

— Jane Montrose, Managing Director, Apple House care homes.

COVID-19 continues to throw considerable challenges at all of us in our communities. At a time of uncertainty and change it is often our families we turn to for support and love to see us through difficult times. We at Apple House believe this connection to our loved ones is fundamental to emotional wellbeing. How then do we uphold a strong and positive visiting ethos at a time when social interaction and mixing of households potentially causes harm?

Visiting Pods!

The Government stated, on 4th November, that ‘Care homes will be encouraged and supported to provide safe visiting opportunities as new national restrictions come into effect.’

Prior to this we had already begun to think creatively about how we could form safe spaces outside our buildings for the specific purpose of providing dedicated visitor spaces. With this in mind, we set out to commission the installation of small log cabins and summerhouses in our gardens. These are now nearing completion and mean that those invaluable connections with the people dearest to those whom we support can be maintained. Of course PPE continues to be used, social distancing respected but our visitor pods are non-clinical friendly spaces, at our homes but not IN our homes.

Creativity is key.

We continue to adapt and evaluate all that we do, with the people we support at the forefront of this at all times. Where we metaphorically hit a wall, we seek guidance from PHE and our very supportive local authorities, and together we find a way to overcome the hurdles thrown at social care by COVID-19. In so doing, we can try to create a new normal, one which doesn’t impact the most vulnerable in our communities and one which protects these invaluable family connections as much as possible.

— Jane Montrose

[Click HERE for quick link to PDF]

Our priority has always been your safety and wellbeing. Closing our doors to visitors has been one ofthe most difficult decisions we have had to make and we understand the impact that this has on youand the people you care about. We do not know how long the coronavirus will affect all of our lives butwanted to share with you what we are doing to keep you safe and well.

Reducing the Risk from COVID-19

• We closed our doors to all visitors at the start of the pandemic, as the situation escalated quickly across the nation. Any visitors, such as visiting health professionals, only enter the care home if it is necessary and if they have followed strict infection control procedures. This includeswearing the correct personal protective equipment (PPE) and of course, making sure that goodhand hygiene is always followed.
• You will have seen the news about concerns relating to masks,  gloves and aprons. We want toassure you that we are following the correct procedures to make sure we protect you and our staff teams. We are keeping up to date with all the guidance and are making sure that our staff knowhow to use the correct equipment.
• Any staff with symptoms, or staff who have been in contact with anyone with COVID-19,  arenot coming to work and are following the government’s guidance on self-isolation.
• We are monitoring all of the people we support for symptoms or behaviour that is considered different to their usual presentation. We understand that not everyone will have the samesymptoms of a persistent/new cough and temperature or loss of smell and taste, and our staffunderstand the need to look for other symptoms and act immediately.

Responsibilities of Apple House Ltd

• We are responsible for ensuring that we support people within our care to meet with family and friends if they wish and that staff have the ability to facilitate this. This support includeshaving written policies and procedures so that all of our team understand what they need to do.
• We will identify other ways to connect with friends and family when face-to-face visits arenot possible. We will use technology such as video conference or telephone calls tocompensate for limited visits.
• We will ensure that we are open and transparent and we will keep family members informed about their own relative’s COVID-19 status (suspected or confirmed) where their relative hasprovided consent or a best interest decision has been made.
• Where the service user has an appointed power of attorney, relevant person’s representativeor another formal role, they will be informed of any changes in health including COVID-19.
• We will provide timely and regular updates to the people we support and their nominatedindividuals on the impact of COVID-19 at our homes and on visiting.

Visits can happen and we are working with you to make these possible in a number of ways including:

• Window visits: This will need safe ground floor window access for both residents and theirvisitors and the relevant social distancing and PPE measures will need to be observed.

• Garden visits: Relevant PPE measures and social distancing will apply. Independent access to the garden will be needed to avoid visitors moving through the care setting to the garden.

• Drive-through visits: These are facilitated visits in the car parks of homes. Again, anyrelevant PPE measures and social distancing will apply.

• Picnics and meetings in local parks/forest, beach or family member’s garden with adherance to social distancing, the use of PPE and the latest government guidance relating to numbers of people in one gathering and households who can mix.

• Designated areas within a care setting where settings allow for this: depending on the service it may be possible to enable visits to one of the cabins within the grounds reserved forthis purpose. These cabins facilitate good ventilation, social distancing, ease of access by the people we support, and limits visitor journeys through the residential areas.

• Family home visits: Where a robust risk assessment and best interest decisions have been reached, visits away from the care home to family members can take place taking into account up to date government guidance.

• We want everyone to be involved in supporting this policy and assisting with ideas of creative visiting and we welcome feedback and input.

The evolving nature of this COVID-19 pandemic means that government guidance can be changed at short notice. For the latest government guidance please refer to the gov.uk website.

— Romaine Lawson, Director of Operations.

Here at Apple House care homes we want to reassure service users, their families, professionals, our staff and suppliers that we will deal with any suspected outbreak in accordance with published NHS and PHE guidelines. These guidelines cover what to do if a staff member or resident, or someone else connected to our homes, are diagnosed with COVID-19.

Incorporating the NHS guidance we have also developed our own contingency plan which includes how to keep people safe and comfortable, how to keep the home and ourselves clean, and how to ensure adequate stocks of food and medicines incase of a quarantine or lock-down situation.

We realise there could be considerable change if we need to isolate within our homes. This change might be quite significant for some people for whom change is difficult. We are therefore planning as best as we can and being creative within our services in order to keep life as normal as possible for people we support and our dedicated staff team.

We need you to help us please. As per NHS guidelines, please don’t visit any of our homes or our head office if you have travelled from any of the ‘red flag’ countries identified on the NHS website or if you have any symptoms of COVID-19 or have been in contact with someone confirmed as having the virus. Self isolation guidance is available HERE.

Furthermore, with immediate effect, we ask you to please consider whether your visit to our homes is essential or if it can be postponed. This is so that we can limit exposure to the virus and risk of contracting it for the more vulnerable individuals who reside with us and for our staff who might also have underlying health issues. We are not closed to visitors at this time but appreciate your extra consideration of non-essential visits. We are also able to offer Skype or telephone calls to family members who wish to use these methods of communication instead of visiting. Of course we continue to be guided by the NHS and will update this website accordingly in the future.

If you would like to see a copy of our Contingency Plan with latest Addendum 1, please contact us through this website or call one of our homes or head office and a copy can be emailed to you.

Please stay well and remember, Catch it, Bin it, Kill it. #WashYourHands

— Jane Montrose, Managing Director.

As the risk of coronavirus increases, the government is urging organisations to put in place contingency plans to mitigate its potential impact – but what will be needed and when is still uncertain.

Apple House today released our COVID-19 (coronavirus) Contingency Plan which is a working document to keep our team and people we support safe and to plan for worst case scenarios in the event the virus spreads or is declared to be a pandemic. Planning for all eventualities is a sensible step even though we all hope the current containment of the virus in this country will continue.

A copy of our Plan, as well as our policy and procedure and COVID-19 fact sheet, is available in our homes. Please ask a team member for a copy if you would like to read it. In the meantime, please see the new link on the right of our website home page for the latest Government update.