Despite remaining Covid free for the whole of 2020, I regret to inform you that the home suffered its first positive Covid result of a staff member and resident in early January.
As part of our open and transparent philosophy of care, we informed all residents, relatives and staff at the earliest opportunity and informed them of the additional actions we will be taking to manage the situation.
Part of this strategy was to have a meeting with residents to discuss any questions or concerns they may have had.
Notes of the meeting were taken by one of the residents, and these will be distributed in due course.
Thankfully, both individuals who tested positive are to date (one week later) not presenting with any of the Covid symptoms which is reassuring.
To put the situation into context, we have carried out over 800 tests since testing became available in June 2020 and thankfully only two of those have proved to be positive.
Whilst highly disappointed at not being able to maintain our 100% success rate we take comfort from the comments of a local healthcare professional who stated that it was almost inevitable that we would not go through the pandemic unaffected and the fact that the tests in comparison to positive results is less than 0.24% and an achievement that we should all be very proud of.
I am also delighted to announce that since the two positive results were received, we have retested all staff and residents again (except those who previously tested positive), and we are delighted to announce that all resident and staff tests were negative.
Well done Team Hendra.