Winter Readiness Toolkit for Care Homes and Residential Care

Welcome to the Care Home Winter Readiness site, from the South West Public Health England Centre, which has been hosted by our colleagues in NHS England and NHS Improvement South West.

Our tool kit is designed to help managers and staff in care homes and other residential care settings with planning and preparation for winter infections and outbreaks, and in outbreak investigation and management.

This year, we have added some new Covid-19 resources, as well as redesigning our resources on flu/other respiratory infections and viral gastroenteritis.  The resources are quick-reference documents, designed to be used as needed for your setting, by staff, residents and visitors.

The toolkit complements the national guidance documents on the www.gov.uk website for Covid-19, other respiratory infections and viral gastroenteritis. In addition, there are a wealth of other resources and web links on the web sites of the various professional health and social care organisations.

Keeping infections out of your care home

 Are you ready for winter?

• Find out with our Self-Assessment Checklist: Preparation for Flu/COVID-19  and gastroenteritis
• Risk Assessment Guide for care homes admitting residents with infections
• Care Home and Residential Care Guidance power point presentation – provides all sorts of practical guidance from recognising and reporting outbreaks, flu vaccination, monitoring of residents, responding to deterioration, managing falls, advice on new admissions, secure email and information sharing etc.
• Immunisation

Flu and Flu vaccination 2020/21: A Toolkit for care homes – This describes why flu vaccination is important, responsibilities of employers, common barriers to immunizations, a template for recording staff vaccination and ideas and resources for improving uptake

Care Home staff vaccination tracker 2020 21

Flu Immunisation for social care staff

Flu vaccination: easy read flu resources

Flu vaccination: who should have it this winter and why

Flu Posters for visitors to hospitals and care homes

Identifying infections as early as possible

• Covid-19 Information sheet: Symptoms
• Covid-19 Information sheet: Temperature
• Covid-19 Information sheet: Testing for Covid-19
• Covid-19 Information sheet: Antibody Testing

Preventing spread of infection in your care home

• Care Staff Action Card for Respiratory outbreaks – this is a short version of the next document
• Acute Respiratory Infections (including Covid-19 and Flu) Single Cases and Outbreaks checklist
• Infection Prevention and Control: An Outbreak and Information Pack for Care Homes: ‘The Care Home Pack’:  – This has been produced by the Public Health England SW Health Protection Team and should serve as a useful practical guide to infection prevention and control, recognizing and managing common infectious diseases and outbreak management in care homes
• Flu poster for visitors to care homes
• “Catch it, Bin it, Kill it” poster
• Hand hygiene poster
• How to contact PHE Poster Sept 2020

Covid-19

• Information sheet: What is an outbreak?
• Information sheet: About contact tracing for Covid-19
• Information sheet: Self-isolation at home for staff and visitors
• Information sheet: Self-isolation for care home residents
• Information sheet: Hand Hygiene
• Information sheet: Respiratory Hygiene
• Information sheet: Cohorting

Viral Gastroenteritis

• Care Staff Action Card for diarrhoea and vomiting outbreaks – short version
• Checklist (integrated Care Pathway) for Care Staff for diarrhoea and vomiting outbreaks – long version
• Norovirus information sheet for health and social care staff
• Stop_norovirus_spreading_this_winter_leaflet
• Guidelines for managing norovirus outbreaks in acute and community health and social care settings

Using personal protective equipment (PPE) and Infection Prevention Control

• COVID-19: infection prevention and control (IPC)
• COVID-19: how to work safely in care homes
• Covid-19 Information sheet: Masks and Face Coverings
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) illustrated guide for community and social care settings

Other useful guidance

• Coronavirus (COVID-19): admission and care of people in care homes
• Visiting care homes during coronavirus
• British Geriatric Society  guidance COVID-19: Managing the COVID-19 pandemic in care homes for older people which includes advice on residents who walk with purpose
• Social Care Institute for Excellence Dementia in care homes and COVID-19 – Supporting residents, supporting carers, supporting homes
• Guidance for stepdown of infection control precautions within hospitals and discharging COVID-19 patients from hospital to home settings
• PHE Seasonal influenza guidance

Glossary

Are you wondering what HPT stands for, or what the CCG do? If so, have a look in the  Glossary.

Need any more information or advice on outbreaks?

If you can’t find what you need on line, and think that we might know the answer, email Ask.SWHPT@phe.gov.uk. This is for non-urgent enquiries. If we don’t know the answer, we may forward your email to someone else who does.

What do you think of our web page?

Are we hitting the mark? Please let us know how useful this toolkit is by completing our on-line survey