On 18th September the government released the Adult Social Care COVID-19 Winter Action Plan with the aim to ensure that high-quality, safe and timely care is provided to everyone who needs it, whilst protecting people who need care, their carers and the social care workforce from COVID-19.

Summary of key strands from the Winter Action Plan:

• People receiving adult social care and care workers will receive free PPE
• A new dashboard will monitor care home infections to help local government and providers respond quicker
• A Chief Nurse for Adult Social Care will be appointed to represent social care nurses and provide clinical leadership to the workforce
• An extra £546 million will be given for the infection control fund to help protect service users and staff throughout winter
• Providers are to restrict the essential movement of staff between settings to reduce transmission

So what does this mean?

As we are likely to be moving into the second wave of this pandemic, it is helpful to understand the updates in the Winter Action Plan and what this could mean for your organisation. Until there is a vaccine for the virus, COVID-19 will remain an ongoing challenge, however, we can take our learning and experience from the first wave to prepare us for what is to come.

Our clients responded differently during the first wave; some organisations asked their employees to work overtime with the aim to reduce the spread of infection, others redeployed resource as some of the individuals who are supported by their service went home to live with family members/carers. Some of our other customers worked in partnership with us on their COVID Contingency Plans to ensure our agency support was consistent and safe.

A long term plan is essential!

Some of the learning highlighted how important it is to have a viable long term solution that protects employee well-being, and ensures a safe service is available for people who need support. A long term plan is essential to ensure the sustainability of the organisation through multiple potential waves until a vaccine is found.

How we have continued to support our clients

We have continued to work proactively in partnership with our clients over this challenging period. As we move into the autumn and winter months, we are able to support you to provide a long term solution that will reduce any none essential movement of staff between settings, as laid out in the revised Adult Social Care Winter Action Plan.

Throughout the pandemic, it was important for us to step forward and support our clients, here is just one example: “You have worked closely with us to ensure transparency, careful planning around minimising the risks to staff and service users and joint working on not only providing safe staffing levels but consistent staff, dedicated to only our service during this time.” – See the full case study here!

The Adult Social Care Winter Action Plan

Services we offer:

As a specialist, family-run recruitment business, we support organisations to target issues such as continuity of staffing, reducing spend where you have a high volume of agency usage and supporting those who have specific talent requirements or are in hard to fill locations. We can help with any immediate staffing requirements or longer-term recruitment projects to ultimately save you time and money on agency spend.

If you would like us to set up a video call to discuss how we can collaborate, please let us know. To get in touch, my personal contact details are 03305 552233 and my email address is [email protected]. Alternatively, you can contact Andrew on [email protected].

Jo Guy
Managing Director