Managers Letter Re: Nurses Phones

14th January 2021

Dear Friends and families,

It is with regret that I am writing to ask for your assistance in helping and Nurses with their daily duties.

Since the Pandemic and our need to close to visitors we have tried where possible to keep lines of communication open between yourselves and your loved ones.

We have set up Pods, facilitated window visits and recruited a Family Liaison assistant. Our activities team has been increased so that we are able to offer Skype and phone calls form Monday to Friday and some of the team have come in at weekends to accommodate those who work or live away.

Many of you are calling the Nurses mobiles to either ask to speak to loved ones or enquire how they are, and I understand how important this is for you when you are unable to visit.

This is putting our Nurses under considerable additional pressure as they do not want to have to say “no” to requests.

Passing the Nurses mobile to a resident to have a chat means that the Nurse then has no contact with the GP, Pharmacy or Health professionals who may be responding to a request from them.

It is also an infection control risk to keep passing the phone from one resident to another and then back to the Nurse. The mobile phone will only take so much sanitising !!

Can I ask that if you want to have chat that you book this with the Activities team on 07932 629580.

The Nurses work 12 hour shifts and 5 hours of this is spent on Medication rounds, other times they are using the mobile phone to facilitate virtual ward rounds or assessments with the GP and many other health professionals who no longer visit the home but communicate via technology, the mobile phone.

If you want to ring to enquire about health matters can I ask you to help in the following ways:

· Call between 2 -5pm when the Nurse is more likely to be able to respond.

· Have one member of the family calling and then communicate amongst your family. Some days Nurses are contacted by three members of the same family calling to discuss one resident!

· Please keep your calls as brief as possible, if we have concerns, we will call you.

If you can help us with this it would be greatly appreciated.

As you are aware Westcourt Surgery are coming to Vaccinate your loved ones on Friday 15th January 2021. Many of our staff have already been vaccinated and Westcourt will visit us to vaccinate the rest as soon as they can.

Once government restrictions relax, we will be about to offer the rapid testing to visitors and have the facilities for this in the building already.

Hopefully, in the coming weeks we will be able to make changes to our visiting policy as the vaccination is rolled out but your assistance in the meantime would really help. If you have any concerns, I am always happy to listen and my email address is manager@fairlightnursinghome.co.uk

Thank you

Tracey Parker

Registered Manager