Advanced Care Policies:
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Advanced Care – Pandemic / Covid-19 Policy:
AIM: The aim of this policy is to provide a planned response to a pandemic with clearly described roles and responsibilities such that in the event of a serious flu outbreak/Covid-19, for instance, Advanced Care can coordinate and manage a safe and effective response to the demands such an incident will have on service users and staff while protecting and maintaining core services.
Advanced Care will keep up to date with the latest public health and government information about the risk of a pandemic in the UK. The admin staff will take on the role of an infection control team and will be responsible for circulating essential information to staff and, where necessary, to service users and their families. They will also order and distribute PPE equipment to support workers.
Advanced Care will comply fully with official advice published by Public Health England and with all existing infection control and prevention guidance, including: The Health and Social Care Act 2008: Code of Practice for Health and Adult Social Care on the Prevention and Control of Infections and Related Guidance.
Infection Control and Prevention Procedures
Advanced Care believes that general adherence to high standards of infection prevention and control is the best way to prevent the person-to-person spread of pathogens and maximise the safely of staff, service users and their families. To achieve this Advanced Cares’ infection control policies and procedures will be implemented in full, especially those related to effective hand hygiene, and the appropriate use of PPE and hand sanitiser.
It is important that support workers adhere to high standards of infection control practice while in services users’ homes and that they ask service users to do so too. PPE must be worn and regular cleaning of frequently touched hard surfaces with a suitable disinfectant, bleach or antibacterial wipes, (provided by Advanced Care) should be carried out. Support workers will be asked to phone ahead and check it is ok to visit the office.
Care Planning and Referrals
During the pandemic crisis, Advanced Care will keep service user care plans under constant review and will work closely with service users, their relatives/carers, social services, health partners, charities and community support groups to ensure that their needs are being met. We will also continue to carry out full risk assessments in relation to any new referrals to ensure that the prospective service users and support workers are kept safe from cross-infection.
Safeguarding
Advanced Care will continue to apply all measures to keep people safe in line with its current policies and local authority safeguarding authority procedures. It will continue to alert the local authority to any safeguarding issue and notify CQC in line with its current notification requirements and procedures. Advanced Care will continue to exercise its Duty of Candour where it has made mistakes that have caused serious harm to its service users.
Mental Capacity and Deprivation of Liberty
Advanced Care is aware of the implications that a pandemic may have on its service users who might lack mental capacity to understand the decisions that are being taken or to act in line with those decisions. Advanced Care will continue to apply “best interests” principles in communicating with people without capacity and in taking the decisions that are required in line with the safe provision of home support and current public health requirements
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Support workers should use all personal protective equipment (PPE) provided by Advanced Care.
During sustained transmission periods:
- support workers should wear disposable gloves, a disposable plastic apron and a face mask whenever providing personal care which requires them to be in direct contact with a client (e.g. touching) or where they are within two metres of anyone in a household
- eye protection may also be needed where there is risk of droplets or secretions from the client’s mouth, nose, lungs or from body fluids reaching the eyes (e.g. caring for someone who is repeatedly coughing or who may be vomiting)
Masks and face protection may be worn on a “continuous” or “sessional” basis between breaks. Masks need not be changed between clients unless they are soiled or damaged. They should be changed at breaks for the next duty period.
Advanced Care will keep in step with changes in government policies and guidance from Public Health England in line with its own risk assessments, with service user and staff safety being of paramount importance. The updated guidance will be notified to support workers and its action points incorporated in care plans. Advanced Care will, whenever possible, replace face to face meetings with remote communication
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Advanced Care – Personal Protective Equipment Policy
AIM: To demonstrate the importance of PPE in reducing the transmission of healthcare-associated infections, protecting the Service User from cross-contamination and the Community Support Worker from occupationally acquired infection.
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Advanced Care will provide all Community Support Workers with PPE. The PPE is stored at the office and is to be collected by the Support Worker as required. Personal Protective Equipment – known as ‘PPE’ – is used to protect Support Workers and Service User from cross-contamination and infection. While performing specific tasks that might involve you meeting blood or body fluids that may contain some infectious agents (germs). Some PPE items will be for single-use only – that is, you MUST use them once and then discard them – while others such as your tunics are retained, cleaned and reused.
Disposable gloves – single use only
Disposable gloves should be worn if you are performing or assisting in a procedure that involves a risk of contact with the service users’ skin whilst completing personal care, body fluids whilst changing incontinence pads and emptying commodes.
Gloves need to be used in specific circumstances only. This includes procedures that involve a risk of contact with body fluids (blood, saliva, sputum, vomit, urine or faeces, for instance) or contact with the Service User’s eyes, nose, ears, lips, mouth or genital area.
Note that disposable gloves are NOT necessary for many parts of routine day-to-day care, such as meal preparation, laundry and bed making.
The gloves should:
- fit you comfortably (not be too tight or too loose)
- be changed between certain different tasks with the same Service User
- never be washed or reused.
When you have finished the procedure, you should take the gloves off, avoiding touching the outer surfaces (which are likely to be contaminated with germs), and dispose of them in the Service User’s wheelie bin. You must then perform hand hygiene.
Disposable aprons – single use only
These are not needed to carry out many normal aspects of day-to-day care with Service Users, such as preparing drinks and meals, but you will need one when you are assisting the Service Users with personal hygiene tasks. You must always perform hand hygiene before putting a disposable apron on and after taking it off and placing it in the Service Users’ bin.
Advanced Care will dispense additional PPE following an assessment to ensure its effectiveness.
Uniforms – multiple use
All Advanced Care Community Support Workers must wear a healthcare Tunic in line with our Uniform and Dress Code Policy. The Tunics are made of a versatile material which can be boil washed to eliminate the bacteria and the risk of cross-contamination.
Hand sanitiser – multiple use
All Advanced Care Community Support Workers are issued with hand sanitiser and can refill their 50mil bottles from a supply kept at the office.
Pandemic packs – single use only
Pandemic packs will be issued to Support Workers in line with advice from Public Health England and when there is a high risk of cross-contamination or infection from serious illnesses such as Ebola or one of the Coronaviruses etc.
- The packs contain:
- Disposable gloves
- Disposable aprons
- Disposable foot covers
- Disposable arm covers
- Disposable face masks
- Disposable visors
- Anti-bacterial wipes
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Privacy Policy:
Advanced Care takes your privacy seriously. This policy explains how we use any personal data we collect about you.
What information do we collect about you?
We collect your information when you contact us to make an enquiry either via our website or over the phone. On initial enquiry, we will take your name, email address and a phone number. On quote acceptance, we may also store your postal address and contacts within your company.
Additional information may be collected via surveys and feedback forms.
Website usage information is collected using cookies but does not collect anything personal to you. We may occasionally have ongoing analytics recordings of user mouse movements and visits.
How do we use the information about you?
The information we collect is used to handle your enquiry and manage your account with us. If you agree, we will also add your email address to our mailing list.
Website analytical data is used to assess the effectiveness of our website, and this includes visit recordings.
Advanced Care will never share your information with a third-party for marketing purposes or otherwise.
How we store our information
We store your information in different ways dependant on its usage;
- Website enquiries received via our contact forms are stored for up to 30 days.
- Client information is encrypted and stored in a separate online database facilitated by our CRM.
- If chosen to join our mailing list, this information is processed and stored with MailChimp. Their privacy policy can be found at https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/
- Website visitor recordings are stripped of identifiable information before stored by service Hotjar. You can read more about Hotjar’s GDPR commitment here: https://www.hotjar.com/legal/compliance/gdpr-commitment
Accessing and removal of your data
You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you at any time. If you would like a copy of this information or would like us to correct or remove anything we store about you, please contact us using the details below.
You can also unsubscribe from our marketing mailing list at any time using the link in the footer of any email sent from us.
Cookies
We use cookies to collect information about your visit to our website. These cookies do not contain identifiable information and simply assign you a unique ID in order to track your visit throughout our site.
For more information about cookies, please visit: https://www.aboutcookies.org/
It is possible to opt-out of cookies, the above website describes how to do this with your browser.
How to contact us
Please use the below information to contact us about our policies and your information:
Email: support@advanced-care.co.uk
Phone: 024 7623 4567
Address: Advanced Care, 11-13 Queen Victoria Road, Coventry, CV1 3JS