Care home and domiciliary care

Capacity tracker

We’ve noticed a real improvement in the numbers of people using the Capacity Tracker. As part of the Adults Social Care Action plan one of the requirements is to update the Capacity Tracker daily.

It’s also a condition of receiving the central government infection control funding. It really will help with reducing the amount of calls to you to find out how your care facility is fairing. 

UCL Partners is signposting to helpful resources that can be used by care home staff to assess patient deterioration and work safely.

Visit the UCL Partners website

Diabetes management in care homes

New guidance has been published designed to support clinical decision making re. diabetes in care homes. As such, the guidance will take into account the availability of skilled personnel, access to monitoring of blood glucose (sugar) and ketones, fluid administration limits, and overall level of care likely to be available.

Offer of internet provision to support care home connectivity

During COVID-19, care providers are utilising digital technology to protect the health and wellbeing of vulnerable residents. Technology is enabling amongst other things, video consultations with health professionals and ordering of prescriptions as well as supporting residents to talk with loved ones.

To further support the technology,  NHSX and NHS Digital have negotiated and published on the NHSX website a range of internet connection offers with telecom companies.

This is complemented by two new pieces of guidance; choosing an internet connection for your care home and how to use digital services in your care home

Clinical Guide on Visiting Arrangements

As part of NHS England’s speciality guides, we would like to share documents relating to palliative care.

If you have any queries relating to this guidance please email [email protected].

PHE and Local Authority Joint Management of Care Homes during COVID-19 Outbreaks

A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) has been developed jointly by the PHE East of England (EoE) Centre and Local Authorities (LA) Directors of Public Health to ensure a co-ordinated response to managing COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes.

It provides a framework for working across PHE EoE, public health structures in LAs, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and other relevant organisations for dealing with COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes.

The overarching joint approach to managing care home outbreaks will be as follows, although specific details on local management will differ between LA areas:

• PHE will undertake risk assessment, advise the care home on infection control measures and hand over the follow up of the outbreak to the LA cell;
• The local system will arrange swabbing of all symptomatic residents at the time of notification of the outbreak (and other asymptomatic residents/staff), in accordance with the EoE Regional Protocol;
• LAs will follow-up and support the care home to continue to operate whilst managing the outbreak, including support with infection prevention and control;
• PHE will continue to provide advice on complex situations on request from local systems, including advice on closing and opening care homes to admissions.

COVID-19 Care Home Protocol and Guidance on External Visitors to Care Homes (social visitors)

This provides a summary of the COVID-19 Care Home Protocol and Guidance on External Visitors to Care Homes (social visitors). This brings together the Guidance issued on 12 April 2021 and national guidance for people about visiting care homes.