Regulated personal care services

Regulated personal care

National Guidance on working safely in domiciliary care
A resource for those working in domiciliary care providing information on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE).

Coronavirus (COVID-19): providing home care
Information for those providing personal care to people living in their own home during the coronavirus outbreak.

Vaccination guidance

Please visit the COVID-19 vaccination page on the PEN website.

Personal Care Provider Forums: quarterly meetings

This is an open invitation for providers of personal care at home to attend the Devon County Council Personal Care Provider Forum. These are informal engagement opportunities for personal care providers, Devon County Council teams (Operations and Market Management) and NHS Devon CCG to get together to share and exchange information. These are core forums to update on emerging issues and concerns, to discuss market support offers and hear local system updates. They also serve as a helpful venue to exchange ideas and feedback from yourselves as providers.

The forums will be held on the following Fridays (please click on a date to join that meeting):
26 April 2022 11.00am – 12.00pm
26 July 2022 11.00am – 12.00pm
25 October 2022 11.00am – 12.00pm

If you would like to join these meetings, please: socialcarebusinessrelations-mailbox@devon.gov.uk stating Personal Care Provider Forum in the subject line. Please note that invitations will be sent to one address within an organisation for that provider to circulate as appropriate.

If you have any issues you would like to include in the agenda please let us know by email: socialcarebusinessrelations-mailbox@devon.gov.uk stating Personal Care Provider Forum in the subject line.

Personal Care Locality Provider Forums

These meetings focus on local issues and are open to providers of personal care that have a contract with DCC. The meetings are attended by DCC Adult Social Care operations representatives along with the Market Management Team and seek to unblock current issues and identify improved ways of working.

If you are a current contracted provider of personal care at home and have not received an invitation, please email: socialcarebusinessrelations-mailbox@devon.gov.uk stating Personal Care Locality Forum and either N, S/W or E in the subject line depending on the geographical area your service covers.

Please note that currently:

• Northern locality meetings are the second Tuesday of each month 14.00 -15.00
• Southern locality meetings are monthly
• Eastern meetings are currently being reviewed

Keeping Yourself Safe

The Keeping Yourself Safe leaflet is now available for domiciliary care providers to use.

Devon personal care (domiciliary homecare) WhatsApp group

We set up a supportive WhatsApp network for personal care business owners, registered managers and nominated individuals. To join the group please complete the form.

Business continuity planning test template domiciliary care

As part of organisational resilience, it is vital for providers to have a robust and up to date business continuity plan in place, that supports them to manage risk effectively at a point of crisis.

Please refer to Business continuity planning and support – Provider Engagement Network for further information and support tools.

Regulated personal care provider webinar

A webinar was held on 17 December 2020 for personal care regulated providers which covered the following topics: testing, capacity tracker, infection control grant, PPE guidance, contingency planning, including an example of Lived experience from a provider and how they dealt with a community outbreak and what they learnt from it.

A copy of the presentation is available.

Testing for domiciliary care staff / homecare workers

Please refer to the ‘Testing’ page on the PEN website.

Providing care and support at home to people who have had COVID-19

This quick guide will help home care workers and personal assistants (PAs) to provide care and support to people who have left hospital after having COVID-19.

How to work safely in domiciliary care in England – guidance

A resource for those working in domiciliary care providing information on the use of personal protective equipment (update on the use of vinyl gloves).

How home care providers can support Test and Trace

Staff from NHS Test and Trace or other public health professionals may contact home care providers if one of their staff or service users has tested positive for coronavirus in order to alert those who have been in close contact with them. Home care providers can assist NHS Test and Trace by keeping a temporary record of their care staff and recipients of care. Many providers will already have the necessary record systems to store and provide this information on request. In these cases, providers do not need to duplicate records.

If you do not currently have a system to record this information, this should be done in a way that is manageable for your business, but sufficiently detailed to effectively support NHS Test and Trace.

It is recommended that providers ensure that their systems are set up in such a way that this information can be reported rapidly on request and identify the person(s) who can produce this information at short notice.

If a provider is contacted, the following information may be requested at short notice:

• the name and telephone number for a home care worker
• the dates and times that a home care worker is at work
• a log of the care worker’s visits to individuals receiving care for the previous 21 days. This should include, where possible, arrival and departure times of their visit, as well as a record of the name and residence of any individual(s) they provided care to (‘the client’)
• the name and telephone number of the client and/or the client’s representative
• the names and telephone numbers of other home care workers, when working in close proximity (for example, during a ‘double up’ visit).

National guidance for home care contains further information and there is guidance on How NHS Test and Trace works and on maintaining records of staff, customers and visitors.

Prioritising care

All providers should be prioritising the most vulnerable people. Please note that DCC has provided a tool to support with this. Please see Business continuity planning and support.

If you are stepping down care, following your organisations RAG approach, you will need to advise DCC. Please refer to Business continuity planning and support and specifically the presentation and accompanying links from Domiciliary Care Business Continuity Planning Meeting 13 January 2022.

Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)

The MHRA publishes a range of guidance on issues relevant to social care providers. You can subscribe to their mailouts to receive updates.

Refusal of care delivery to service users with coronavirus

If a service user has coronavirus and a provider will not deliver care then, in the first instance, advice and reassurance should be offered to the care worker around the use of personal protection equipment. If they continue to be unwilling to provide care an alternative care worker should be identified if possible.

If no care worker will attend then the provider should immediately escalate this to the COVID-19 Incident Management Team by emailing adultsc.adultcarehealthcovid19-mailbox@devon.gov.uk

The Team will either try to arrange alternative care for the person in their home or take other action depending on the presenting risk.