In these unprecedented times, your safety and wellbeing, and that of our staff and the care workers who attend to you, remains our absolute priority. As the situation with coronavirus changes swiftly, our common goal is to support you to the very best of our ability.
We are also committed to staying connected with you. This includes updates on any impact to your service delivery and regular sharing of official government advice as it is released, as well as being available to answer any questions you may have.
Every element of our response plan is based on the recommendations from the Australian Government’s Department of Health as well as those of the States in which we operate. Already, our team has implemented clear policies and procedures to ensure all our staff and the care workers who visit your home understand and follow the very latest COVID-19 guidance for social and community care.
CLIENT VISIT SCREENING PROCESS NOW IMPLEMENTED
The most important thing we can all do to minimise risk is to prevent avoidable transmission. In response to this, we have developed a screening process with the aim of ensuring your safety and that of our staff and all the care workers who visit your home. Effective immediately, Care Connect staff will be implementing the screening process prior to any home visit and we have instructed all our care workers to do the same. The screening consists of a series of three questions as follows:
1. Have you, somebody you live with, or someone who will be present at the home visit/meeting returned from travel overseas in the past 14 days?
2. Have you or someone who will be present at the home visit/meeting been unwell due to respiratory symptoms, fever or flu like illness in the past 14 days?
3. Have you or someone who will be present at the home visit/meeting been in close contact with anybody who has been diagnosed with coronavirus (COVID-19) in the past 14 days?
Note: Close contact includes face to face contact for at least 15 minutes, or being in the same closed space for at least 2 hours as someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus when that person was infectious.
Personal situations can change quickly, so we will be undertaking this screening before every visit/meeting is scheduled by our Client Advisers.
Asking these questions is an important step we can all take to prevent transmission. We also encourage you to ask the same questions of anyone providing your services before they enter your home. If they answer yes to any question, your safest choice is to not let them into your home. It may seem a little awkward at first, but anyone who cares about your wellbeing will understand. It’s all about keeping each other safe.
As part of our effort to ensure our team is healthy and available to meet your care needs, we have been “thinning” our office and enabling our staff to set themselves up to work from home by the end of March 2020. This may come with some challenges in terms of responsiveness to phone and email as we adapt to this new way of working. Please rest assured though that the move is to protect our ability to care for you during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We appreciate that these are uncharted waters. Let me reassure you that everyone at Care Connect is committed to your safety and support as we meet this challenge together.
Yours sincerely
Paul Ostrowski
Chief Executive Officer