Christmas and New Year approach for mask wearing and testing

From the 22nd December the Government will be making it the responsibility of care home providers as to whether to wear masks or not. We recognise that local infections are rising and therefore, we will continue to wear masks over this risky Christmas and New Year period.

We are putting in place the following infection control measures for the next month:

  • Staff and visitors to continue to wear masks in all WCS care homes
  • LFD 72 hour testing will be reintroduced for staff
  • Precautionary 72 hour LFD testing will be reintroduced for visitors (we can provide tests)
  • Visitors not wishing/unable to take a test will be offered visits in pods or private rooms and asked to avoid communal areas where there are other vulnerable residents

WCS has been right at the front line, managing Covid since just before the pandemic began. Our approach of thinking ahead of time and trying to predict what will happen next has served us well.

We’ve waited a long time to hear that masks are no longer required in care homes. However, given our residents have underlying conditions and a Covid infection on top can be very significant for them, risks from the virus remain high. We’re seeing an increase in care home infections locally and almost half of our homes have experienced Covid cases and resulting related illness in the last few weeks. In fact, we’re predicting that the increase in infections will continue as people spend time mixing with friends and family over the Christmas and New Year period.

Whilst Covid may not be impacting a majority of people significantly, our residents are far more vulnerable due to other health conditions, and their frailty means they are at higher risk of requiring hospital admission should they pick up an infection. As you’re probably aware, it’s very hard to get GP appointments (which is no different for care home residents), local hospitals are under a lot of pressure and there are long waits for ambulances too. So unnecessarily contracting Covid is something we want to avoid for residents.

We will also reintroduce lateral flow tests for the next few weeks (within 72 hours of a shift for staff and precautionary testing for visitors) from the 21st December. Tests can be provided for you if required from our surplus stock.

If our prediction of increased infections and limited NHS capacity proves to be wrong, we’ll start to ease these measures from the 20th January.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you a very safe, happy Christmas and New Year. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to speak to your home’s management team.

WCS Care