Covid Compliance at Lakeland Community Care.

LCC has undertaken a risk assessment to analyse the work environment, assessing employee risk of coronavirus exposure at work. LCC workforce operates on the frontline, providing a range of care services to the most vulnerable in the community.This involves regular close interactions and contact with the service users. Our service users are within the “Vulnerable” or ‘High Risk Shielding’ categories. Social distancing is not achievable in the majority of cases.

Our community carers interact with and are therefore exposing/exposed to the service user as well as their household support network including family and friends. Therefore there is a high risk of exposure and transmission where our carers are required to provide care to Covid-19 patients and to households where Covid-19 is present or suspected. Whilst our workforce is doing everything to minimise exposure/transmission, an adequate supply of PPE is necessary and was not available at the first outbreak in March 20.

LCC educate our carers on;

• good hygiene practices to reduce the spread of infection

• Frequent handwashing

• Wearing face masks

• Wearing protective shields for showering or symptomatic clients

• Procedures for disposing of masks, aprons and other protective equipment

• Proper sneezing/coughing procedures

• No face touching when removing masks

• Cleaning and disinfecting work surfaces.

• Self-isolation with no symptoms

• Vulnerable persons category

• Shielding

Utilising appropriate PPE equipment and combining these with the measures detailed above, provides LCC with the best opportunity to sustain our workforce and therefore service provision, whist doing our utmost to reduce the spread of the virus.

These are three simple actions we must all do to keep on protecting each other

• Wash hands - keep washing your hands regularly

• Cover face - wear a face covering in enclosed spaces

• Make space - stay at least 2 metres apart - or 1 metre with a face covering or other precautions.