Call To Support & Help Protect Care At Home Staff 

A CALL is being made to people benefitting from care at home services and their families to help support work being undertaken at a very challenging time.

This includes a request for people accessing these services to wear face coverings when possible to do so, even if this means wearing them in their own homes.

And it includes a call for families to be as open and supportive as possible to any short-term proposals from service providers aimed at ensuring the most effective use of resources.

Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership Chief Officer Julie White said: “COVID-19 continues to present a real challenge across the whole of health and social care in Dumfries and Galloway.

“We’re facing all the additional problems posed by the coronavirus with the same numbers of staff that we had before the outbreak began, and this is putting a very considerable strain on our systems.

“Staff who provide care in people’s homes wear PPE including face coverings to protect those who are benefitting from the service.

“However, those people who are being supported can help protect staff by simply wearing a face covering.

“It may seem strange to do this in your own home, but staff have no option but to venture into homes – day in, day out. Where possible, we’d ask people benefitting from their help to support them in turn by wearing a mask during their visits.

“As a matter of course, anyone accessing a care at home service who has been diagnosed with COVID-19 will be required to wear a specific mask during visits by care at home staff. These specific masks will be supplied by the health and social care partnership.”

Care at home staff were aided during the first lockdown by the fact that the families of many people they assist were in a position to provide additional support to their loved ones.

Julie White said: “We appreciate that circumstances are continually changing, but if families intending to provide additional support to a loved one are able to communicate those arrangements to care at home staff then that would be very much appreciated.

“Additionally, understanding and support for some degree of flexibility in terms of care at home services which may be required – perhaps in the form of slight variances in timings – would also be hugely appreciated.

“The welfare of people within their care are the utmost priority for staff, and I would like to express a sincere appreciation for the work they are undertaking during very challenging circumstances, and for the support they have received from the people they are helping and their families.”