At Canterbury Care, the health, wellbeing and safety of our residents is at the heart of everything we do. Although we have made many changes to the way we work, our teams continue to ensure that life is enjoyable and fulfilling for those in our care. With well-established infection control procedures and a dedicated clinical governance and quality team to oversee these, we have been able to react quickly and safely manage the pandemic across our care homes.
You can read how we have been using data-driven technology to ensure our care homes remain COVID-19 Safe by clicking here.
We are delighted to have reunited our residents with their designated visitors inside our homes over the past few weeks.
However, we must make sure that we reintroduce visiting in the safest possible way. When new government guidance is issued, we carry out dynamic risk assessments for each of our homes and review our visiting policy accordingly. Each resident has their own individualised visiting plan and we continue to encourage close family members to be involved in the development of this.
We understand how difficult the decision to name designated visitors may be and we have been supporting our residents in any way we can. Where a resident is unable to make this decision for themselves, we have been working with family members and friends to make a best interest decision on their behalf.
All visiting arrangements are subject to strict infection control protocols and vary depending on location.
In England, current guidance allows each care home resident to choose up to five designated visitors to visit them regularly indoors. However, this is limited to a maximum of two visitors at any one time, or two visitors separately in the course of one day. The manager of your loved one’s Canterbury Care Home will be in contact with the additional designated visitors with full details and confirmation of the start date. Children under school age do not need to be counted as a designated visitor.
Currently, in Scotland, guidelines allow us to reunite residents with up to two designated visitors visiting one at a time.
The manager of your relative’s care home will contact you by letter, email or telephone with any changes to visiting arrangements, advising the start date, booking process and infection control procedures visitors will need to follow. This will include information on the lateral flow tests that nominated visitors will be required to take.
Additional visiting options including garden, garden pod (with a substantial screen) and window visits may also be available. These depend upon the location and layout of your local Canterbury Care Home.
For the most up-to-date visiting arrangements for your local care home, please contact your home manager.
*The term ‘designated visitor’ means that it must be the same two people or person visiting.
All visits must be booked by the nominated visitor in advance through the booking system at the home. Please call your relative’s care home directly to book your visit.
The team at the home will book your visit for a specified time slot. The length and frequency of visits will be determined by the dynamic risk assessment which has been completed by the home manager and their team.
Please do not turn up at the home expecting to visit if you have not booked in advance.
Please proceed to the designated entrance as indicated at the time of booking where a member of our team will greet you.
We will then:
The team member who greeted you will escort you to our lateral flow testing area and provide you with instructions. You will need to wait for 30 minutes for the test result, but we will do our best to make sure you are comfortable during this time.
On receipt of a negative result, we will:
Should your test result be positive, you will be asked to return home immediately and to follow government rules for self-isolation and COVID-19 testing.
Although visiting your loved one inside their care home will come as a great relief, it will almost certainly feel very different for all involved.
Here are some tips to help you prepare:
Although we will do our best to prepare your loved one for their visit, by looking at photos and discussing family memories, those with dementia may struggle to recognise you at first. Talking about childhood memories and reminiscing about significant life events during your visit may help with this.
As you know, the situation can change rapidly. In the event of an outbreak in a care home or if instructed by the local Public Health Director, visiting will be stopped immediately (except in exceptional circumstances such as end of life).
The home manager will be in contact with you to confirm any changes to our visiting policy should they occur.
Restricted visiting does not mean you have to lose touch. We have contingencies in place to ensure that you can still speak to, and in many cases still see relatives in our care during the pandemic.
Through the use of phone and video calls, and where applicable, the care home’s Facebook page, we will ensure that you remain in contact with your loved one, and they remain in contact with the wider community.
Currently, we are working with the NHS and local public health teams to get the Covid-19 vaccination to our residents and staff as quickly as possible. We have had a fantastic take up of vaccinations for both residents and staff to date and the number continues to rise.
We have recently implemented a new recruitment policy to ensure all new joiners are vaccinated before they start work. This will assist us in fulfilling our responsibility to minimise risk to the lowest practicable level.
We will continue to accept new residents into many of our homes to support those in the community who require care.
To safeguard the health and wellbeing of our residents and care teams, we will carry out preadmission assessments remotely by telephone, video call, or email. This is to ensure that any new admissions are safe, appropriate, and do not put our residents and staff at risk.
If you would like to make an enquiry please click here to find the contact details for your local care home.
All residents in our homes are highly vulnerable, as are many of their loved ones. We need to ensure that the actions we take do not significantly increase the rate of infections.
We are acting on the advice and guidelines provided by Public Health England and Health Protection Scotland. As the situation changes, we will constantly review and adapt our approach. We will update this page in line with the most current Government information and advice.
We thank you for your co-operation and for considering the health and wellbeing of our residents at this time.
If you would like to know more about Covid-19, please follow the links below.
