Edition 1 - Tuesday 21 April

Dear colleagues,

First of all, thank you.

Everyone is working under such unprecedented pressure, and as ever, you have all stepped up to meet the challenge.

We will continue to support you through updated guidelines and guidance, and hosting webinars and virtual clinics. My team are fully focused on addressing new issues where they arise, so please continue to work with us and your regional teams to get the support you need.

The first few weeks of the pandemic have rightly focused on the acute management of  patients presenting with COVID-19. Now (more than ever) we need to make sure that the longer-term support for people is in place. We will be working closely with you to develop the appropriate guidance and support for you.

Finally, to ensure we have the right intelligence/information to best support you all, please can you ensure that care homes, hospices and community rehabilitation wards fill in the capacity tracker.  The information does allow better organisation of support and increases the knowledge in every local system of the supply of care in the community.

Once again, thank you for your continued hard work.   

Kind regards,    

Highlights 

1. DHSC Publication of Action Plan for Adult Social Care (15 April) – Available here
2. Updated guidance - Admission and Care of Residents in Care Homes (2 April) – Available here
3. Revised PPE guidance published by Public Health England (12 April) – Available here
4. Updated Guidance on COVID-19 Community Services Prioritisation – Available here

Published Guidance

COVID-19 Action Plan for Social Care

On 15 April, the Government published COVID-19: Our Action Plan for Adult Social Care. The plan is structured around four key pillars:

1. Controlling the spread of infection
2. Supporting the workforce
3. Supporting independence, supporting people at the end of their lives, and responding to individual needs.
4. Supporting local authorities and the providers of care.

The action plan sets out the approach for all settings and contexts in which people receive adult social care. This includes people’s own homes, residential care homes and nursing homes, and other community settings. The plan aims to support care providers, the care workforce, unpaid carers, local authorities and the NHS in the ongoing work to maintain services and continue to provide high quality and safe social care to people throughout the pandemic.

Guidance on Admission and Care of Residents during COVID-19

Guidance has been published for care homes, local health protection teams, local authorities, clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) and registered providers of accommodation for people who need personal or nursing care. This new guidance sets out how to admit and care for residents safely and protect care home staff.  It also outlines how care homes, hospices and community rehabilitation providers should be using the capacity tracker to share information on available beds during this incident. 

Community Health Services - Updated Guidance on COVID-19 Prioritisation

Community health services are vital to the COVID-19 response.  This guidance details which community health services should stop, partially stop or continue so that providers can release capacity to support the COVID-19 response and has recently been updated in line with developing clinical advice.  To easily identify the most significant changes, it is accompanied by a change log which records additions, removals and changes to categorisation of services.  

News and Updates

Access to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) 

The recently published COVID-19 Action Plan for Adult Social Care includes methods of distribution of PPE to the social care sector:

• Existing supplier networks: PPE has been released to designated wholesalers for onward sale to social care providers.
• Local Resilience Forums: stocks are intended for social care and primary care. Contact your LRF or DASS for information on how to access these supplies.
• National Supply Disruption Response (NSDR): The NSDR system has been mobilised to respond to emergency PPE requests, including for the social care sector. Phone: 0800 915 9964 (available 24/7) or use the website.
• Parallel Supply Chain: DHSC, NHSE&I, NHS Supply Chain, Clipper Logistics and the Armed Forces are working together to develop a Parallel Supply Chain to support the normal supply chain. This supply chain currently supplies hospitals and the LRFs. A new web-based system for procuring PPE will be launched shortly to allow social care to access PPE through this route.

Public Health England (PHE) are producing specialised training videos for donning and doffing of standard PPE and will offer tailored insights into how the PPE guidance applies in care setting. This will be available on the government website shortly.

Community Health Services Standard Operating Procedure – Now available

The new Community Health Services Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) supports community services to respond to COVID-19. It includes a range of resources, information and guidance for teams on developing operating responses for home visits and in healthcare settings, virtual triage and assessments. It also includes information on supporting the most vulnerable including people with dementia and children and young people. The SOP should be used in conjunction with the Discharge guidance and Prioritisation within Community Services guidance.

Update on using accredited, secure email addresses for social care

NHS England and Improvement is working closely with NHS Digital to quickly roll out NHSmail for social care providers . This means that, in addition to NHSmail, social care providers can use these other accredited, secure email addresses. If you have concerns about sharing information in a secure way, read this guidance from the Information Commissioner and this guidance on secure email accreditation.

Register for the NHS Capacity Tracker

The COVID-19 Hospital Discharge Service Requirements guidance requires care homes, NHS community hospital beds and hospice beds to be recorded on the Capacity Tracker.  Providers of care homes must register and update it regularly to ensure a clear understanding, locally and nationally, of bed capacity and other business information. The data produced should also be used to assist in local, regional and national planning processes.

Myth Busting

Blanket do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation (DNACPR) orders.

National Medical Director, Professor Steve Powis and Chief Nursing Officer,  Ruth May have sent a reminder to all parts of the health service of  the constitutional standards in the NHS to treat people as individuals and that we have responsibility to support people in the right way to make those decisions.

Further Support

Webinars and Online Platforms

There have been over 22 webinars since 20 March to provide support across health and social care. These have covered the following themes; COVID-19 hospital discharge service requirements, virtual clinics on supporting hospital discharge, COVID-19 admission and care of people in care homes, COVID-19 discharge support – Section 75, Trusted Assessment.

To date, we have had over 4,200 colleagues join our webinars. Further webinars are being planned including on Home Care, roles and responsibilities in relation to the Discharge Service Requirements and admissions avoidance. Please email england.bettercaresupport@nhs.net with any suggestions for additional guidance and support material.

We have also had over 2,500 views of COVID-19 discharge related content on our Better Care Exchange platform. Registration details for webinars and virtual clinics are also on the Exchange and updated regularly, as well as recordings being available from previous webinars. To register for the Better Care Exchange, please email england.bettercareexchange@nhs.net.