Dear All

Covid-19 Lockdown

We have now been locked down as a country for the past 3 weeks, which resulted in our heightening our restricted visiting policy to assist in our fight to keep the Covid-19 virus at bay and protect our residents, our families and our staff to the best of our ability.

We are mindful that the Government has now decided that the national lockdown continues for a further 3 weeks and therefore it is our intention to maintain our current restricted visiting strategy, and we hope that each and every one of you will continue to work with us to minimise the risk of exposure of the Covid-19 virus within our services, which in turn protects all of us.

We know that Covid-19 stirs many emotions in all of us, not least given that most of us will have been affected in some way by the virus, whether this be having to self-isolate due to having symptoms of the virus, a family member having symptoms and possibly losing someone to this indiscriminative disease.

Despite all the negativity around Covid-19, we would like to share with you how we have responded as a business to the Covid-19 situation, which we hope will provide additional assurance to you that we are resolute in our approach to fight this virus.

For the past several weeks, we have held a daily Clinical Governance Group meeting where we discuss all of the updated guidance that is being provided by Public Health England (PHE) and the Government which in turn enables us to advise the business on all the key actions that we should take to minimise risk of exposure to Covid-19 across our services.

Each day we are provided with a national Covid-19 update, which provides numerous statistics on how the virus is tracking throughout the UK and the number of people lost to Covid-19 cared for by the NHS, with little reference to the impact on social care settings; however, we are now starting to see a shift and there is increased recognition now for the work that organisations like ours do in supporting the national effort to fight Covid-19.

We are mindful that things can change on a daily basis, however, we would like to share with you that since this virus has been prevalent in the UK, we have had a total of 19 residents within the business that have had to self-isolate as a result of displaying symptoms of the Covid-19 virus and to date only 1 person has tested positive, all residents have come through this safely.

The following graph represents the impact of the virus across 85 services and reflects a total of 1.5% of our residents that have been required to self-isolate; we are sure that you will appreciate that this is an excellent outcome to date and truly represents the commitment of everyone involved with Valorum Care Group adhering to the decisions that we have taken to manage this situation.

These statistics are representative of the impact of Covid-19 to date, we know there are many more weeks ahead that we have to maintain our approach in fighting the virus, but what makes the facts impressive, is that throughout the same timeframe, 336 members of our workforce, 17% of the total workforce, have also had to self-isolate or shield from the virus; this would suggest that despite this level of exposure to the virus, everyone involved has worked over and above to protect all those entrusted in to our care and everyone should be extremely proud of this achievement, and we would like to say a very big thank you to everyone for working with us.

The following graph represents the 336 staff that have been required to self-isolate throughout March and April. Apart from staff that have to shield themselves from the virus for a 12-week period all staff previously affected have now returned to work; despite this positive outcome, it is essential that there is zero complacency with this virus and staff will continue to maintain our robust approach and commitment to keeping everyone safe.

We are pleased to report that despite the numbers of staff that have been affected by Covid-19, we have seen a downward turn in the overall number of agency staff that have been required to work across our services throughout this pandemic; again this is a reflection of our teams pulling together in their commitment to ensure that our residents are being supported and cared for by people who they know and trust at such an anxious time in their lives.

PPE is a topic of major discussion throughout the country, specifically from the perspective if there is a definitive shortfall in supply; we continue as a business to be guided by Public Health England in respect of when and where to wear PPE. We can confirm that to date we have maintained our PPE supply chain with our preferred suppliers and this is set to continue for the foreseeable future, so please be assured that our procurement team are committed to maintaining this much needed commodity.

Our Supply chain in general continues to be well managed, so food supply and the supply of care service essentials to date has not been affected and therefore we can report there are no areas that give rise to concern for us at this time.

With the heightened interest on social care on a national level, we are now gaining access to Covid-19 testing sites for our staff if symptoms are experienced, which can only be a real positive for us in our battle to keep the virus out of all of our services. We have now seen a commencement of testing for residents showing any signs or symptoms of the virus, we have no doubt this will offer reassurance to you all that appropriate actions are being taken to assist in helping us manage any situation that may arise as a result of Covid-19 exposure.

We are mindful that the Government has now decided that the national lockdown continues for a further 3 weeks and therefore it is our intention to maintain our current restricted visiting strategy; the reduced footfall in to our services is definitely having a positive impact on the business, this is a real team effort on everyone’s part and we believe that this approach to date is working for us and we appreciate all your support which in turn is protecting all of us.

Kind regards

Tom Parramore

Group COO