COVID-19

Due to COVID-19 visits to the office is appointment only

Information is easily accessible on arrival or before visits to ensure visitors follow guidance, procedures or protocols courtesy of our serviced building Titan Business Centre.

Yorkshire Care At Home recognises that the outbreak of a new strain of coronavirus SARS coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) which results in the disease COVID-19 is a fast-moving situation. The WHO has stated that countries should be preparing themselves. As care providers, ensuring robust infection control and business continuity plans form part of preparing business at Yorkshire Care At Home for any events that can cause disruption to the normal business.

Yorkshire Care At Home will ensure that staff are aware and understand the importance of pandemic preparedness and will carry out preparations by following the checklist in the Pandemic Policy and Procedure at Yorkshire Care At Home. Yorkshire Care At Home understands that business continuity planning involves all aspects of the business and to be effective Yorkshire Care At Home must work with their partners, suppliers and commissioners to ensure that a safe and effective service can be maintained.

Yorkshire Care At Home understands that they have a responsibility for ensuring that staff follow good infection control and prevention techniques and that they support Service Users with this too. Yorkshire Care At Home will ensure that staff have access to reliable information to reduce anxiety and dispel any myths and inaccurate information that may cause worry or distress to staff, Service Users or the wider public.

Pandemic Policy

Yorkshire Care At Home recognises that the WHO has declared COVID-19 as a public health emergency of international concern, known as a PHEIC, but have not classified it as an epidemic. Yorkshire Care At Home however, will review the Pandemic Policy and Procedure and complete the checklist to ensure that the business is prepared and that robust business continuity plans are in place.

Yorkshire Care At Home will ensure that staff have access to the Coronavirus Fact Sheet within the Forms section of this document.

Reducing the Risk of Contracting or Spreading the Virus

Yorkshire Care At Home will ensure that staff follow the WHO and NHS advice to reduce the risk of contracting the virus and the risk of spreading it. The following procedures must be followed;

Wash your hands regularly and properly for at least 20 seconds (2 verses of Happy Birthday) by using soap and running water
Use hand sanitiser when it is not possible to wash hands with soap and water. Hand sanitiser must contain 60% alcohol to be effective
Maintain at least 1 metre (3 feet) distance between yourself and anyone who is coughing or sneezing (social distancing). When someone coughs or sneezes they spray small liquid droplets from their nose or mouth which may contain the virus. If you are too close, you can breathe in the droplets, including the COVID-19 virus if the person coughing has the disease
Avoid touching eyes, nose and mouth. Hands touch many surfaces and can pick up viruses. Once contaminated, hands can transfer the virus to your eyes, nose or mouth. From there, the virus can enter your body and can make you sick
Practice respiratory hygiene. Make sure you, and the people around you, follow good respiratory hygiene. This means covering your mouth and nose with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. If you do not have a tissue, use your sleeve. Then dispose of the used tissue immediately and wash your hands, or use hand sanitiser if you do not have immediate access to soap and running water. Droplets spread virus. By following good respiratory hygiene you protect the people around you from viruses such as cold, flu and COVID-19
If you have fever, cough and difficulty breathing, seek medical care early. It is very unlikely to be coronavirus if you have not been in close contact with someone with confirmed coronavirus or you have not been to a country or area with a high risk of coronavirus in the last 14 days. If you have either travelled or have been in contact with a person who has been confirmed as having COVID-19, do not go directly to your GP or hospital, use the 111 coronavirus Service, or call 111. If it is a medical emergency call 999 but explain that you have either travelled or had contact with a confirmed case of coronavirus
Stay informed and follow advice given by 111, Public Health England or NHS. National and local authorities will have the most up-to-date information on whether COVID-19 is spreading in your area. They are best placed to advise on what people in your area should be doing to protect themselves
People who feel unwell should stay at home and should not attend work but must speak to Yorkshire Care At Home as soon as they feel unwell. Staff must follow the Sickness Absence Policy and Procedure at Yorkshire Care At Home

Handwashing

Staff should wash their hands:

Before leaving home

On arrival at work
After using the toilet
After touching pets
After breaks and sporting activities
Before food preparation
After using public transport
Before eating any food, including snacks
Before leaving work
On arrival at home
Confidentiality

Yorkshire Care At Home will follow confidentiality and GDPR policies and procedures to ensure that the details of staff involved in caring for Service Users with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 is kept confidential. Employees should also respect each other’s confidentially and take care not to inadvertently share information when using social media. Where staff are suspected or confirmed to have contracted COVID-19, their personal details should be treated as confidential, as they would be for any other Yorkshire Care At Home Service User.

Safe StaffinG

In the event of an outbreak of COVID-19, where staff are moved from other areas to support work on COVID-19, assessments should be made on the ability to continue to deliver safe and effective care in the services affected. Steps should be taken to mitigate any risks resulting from staff moving to other areas.Yorkshire Care At Home will as part of pandemic preparedness assess whether any staff need additional training, support or require a DBS check.

Reducing the Risk of Stigmatization

Stigma occurs when people negatively associate an infectious disease, such as COVID-19, with a specific population. In the case of COVID-19, there are an increasing number of reports of public stigmatization against people from areas affected by the epidemic, this means that people are being labelled, stereotyped, separated, and/or experience loss of status and discrimination because of a potential negative affiliation with the disease. Yorkshire Care At Home will ensure that staff understand the importance of preventing and addressing social stigma by making sure facts are available to staff and Service Users.

Identifying Possible Cases of the Virus

You may need to get medical advice if you have recently travelled to the UK from somewhere with a higher risk of coronavirus in the last 14 days. These places are:

Cambodia
China
Hong Kong
Iran
Italy
Japan
Laos
Macau
Malaysia
Myanmar (Burma)
Singapore
South Korea
Taiwan
Tenerife – only the H10 Costa Adeje Palace Hotel
Thailand
Vietnam
If someone has returned from these specific areas in the last 14 days, they should self-isolate even if they do not have symptoms. If they do develop symptoms, they should use NHS111 online at 111.nhs.uk (if they have no internet access, they should call NHS111). The areas are:
Iran
Italy*

l Special care zones in South Korea as designated by the Government of the Republic of South Korea

Hubei province

This applies to the whole of Italy if the individual has returned after 9th March, when the Italian government extended the lockdown to the entire country.

The guidance is changing every day and Yorkshire Care At Home will keep under review the specific advice for each country by reviewing the Public Health England Web pages on returning travellers to the UK. Yorkshire Care At Home will also review the number of cases reported near Yorkshire Care At Home to keep up to date on the risk which is updated daily at 2pm on the Public Health England site

Definition of Contact

Contact with a case is defined as any of the following:

Living in the same household
Direct contact with the case or their body fluids, or in the same room of a healthcare setting when an aerosol generating procedure is undertaken on the case without appropriate PPE
Direct or face to face contact with a case, for any length of time
Being within 2 metres of the case for any other exposure not listed above, for longer than 15 minutes
Being otherwise advised by a public health agency that contact with a confirmed case has occurred
Contacts are not considered cases and if they are well they are very unlikely to spread the infection to others

Actions if a Service User Meets the Criteria and Displays Symptoms

If a Service User complains of symptoms and has either travelled from an infected area or has been in contact with others, staff must make sure;

The Service User is safe and withdraw from the room
They immediately wash their hands and avoid touching the face, nose, mouth or eyes
They contact 111 for advice or 999 if an emergency (if they are seriously ill or injured or their life is at risk) and explain which country they have returned from in the last 14 days and outline their current symptoms
They contact Yorkshire Care At Home as soon as possible and advise of the situation. This must be a high priority
They do not attend any other Service Users, visit their GP or travel in the community until advice is sought
Whilst they wait for advice from NHS 111 or an ambulance to arrive, staff should remain at least 2 metres from other people. They should avoid touching people, surfaces and objects and be advised to cover their mouth and nose with a disposable tissue when they cough or sneeze and put the tissue in a bag then throw the tissue in the bin. If they do not have any tissues available, they should cough and sneeze into the crook of their elbow
If they need to go to the bathroom whilst waiting for medical assistance, they should use a separate bathroom if available. This will apply only to the period of time while waiting for transport to hospital

Action if a Member of Staff Reports Symptoms

Yorkshire Care At Home will ensure that the member of staff has sought advice from 111
Yorkshire Care At Home must contact Bradford City Council and the local health protection team for advice. Public Health England will provide advise to the person infected and will carry out all contact tracing
Advice will be given to the member of staff if they need to self-isolate and what action will need to take place for any Service Users that they may have had contact with
If a member of staff reports that there are concerns about their children, close family, friends who they have had close contact with, the local health protection team must be contacted for advice
Yorkshire Care At Home must ensure that confidentiality is maintained and that records are held in line with Data Protection Act requirements
In the event of a confirmed case, closure of the office, workplace or residential setting is not recommended. Yorkshire Care At Home will be contacted by the Public Health England (PHE) local Health Protection Team to discuss the case, identify people who have been in contact with them and advise on actions that should be taken.

Professionals providing this service should be aware of the following:

The current understanding is that the virus does not survive on surfaces for longer than 72 hours. Regular cleaning of frequently touched hard surfaces and hands will therefore help to reduce the risk of infection
Washing your hands often, with soap and water, or use alcohol sanitiser that contains at least 60% alcohol if handwashing facilities are not available - this is particularly important after taking public transport
Yorkshire Care At Home must make sure they have the facts about the new coronavirus or the disease COVID-19 from a reliable source. Public Health England and the Department of Health and Social Care are 2 examples. Staff should read the fact sheet in the Forms section for more information
Yorkshire Care At Home must have an up to date business continuity plan in place. The Pandemic Policy and Procedure has a checklist to help plan for an outbreak of a disease like COVID-19
Its important that Service Users are made aware of how they can help limit the spread of COVID-19 and that they understand the signs and symptoms of the disease
Yorkshire Care At Home will need to work closely with Bradford City Council, health providers, suppliers and other agencies to ensure that there is continuity and consistency of care

For Any Employee that is Pregnant please see below the link the information is from.

https://www.rcog.org.uk/en/guidelines-research-services/guidelines/coronavirus-pregnancy/covid-19-virus-infection-and-pregnancy/

Pregnant woman were placed in a vulnerable group by the Chief Medical Officer on 16th March. This means you have been advised to reduce social contact through social distancing measures.

Based on the evidence we have so far, pregnant women are still no more likely to contract coronavirus than the general population. What we do know is that pregnancy in a small proportion of women can alter how your body handles severe viral infections. This is something that midwives and obstetricians have known for many years and are used to dealing with. As yet, there is no evidence that pregnant women who get coronavirus are more at risk of serious complications than any other healthy individuals.

What has driven the decisions made by officials to place pregnant women in the vulnerable category is caution. We know that some viral infections are worse in pregnant women. At the moment, there’s no evidence that this is the case for coronavirus infection, but the amount of evidence available is still quite limited.

Q. I am pregnant, what do I need to do?

As a precaution, you should follow government advice about social distancing; stay away from public places and avoid anyone who has symptoms suggestive of coronavirus. It is still considered necessary for pregnant women to go out for essentials, such as food shopping, exercise and to attend antenatal appointments.

If you are in your third trimester (more than 28 weeks pregnant) you should be particularly attentive to social distancing and minimising any contact with others.

All pregnant women should follow the PHE advice: