The coronavirus (COVID-19) has been categorised as a pandemic by the World Health Organisation, I wanted to reassure you that we are focused on the health and welfare of the people we support and our staff. I am therefore writing to share with you some of the actions that we have taken to minimise disruption and ensure that we can continue the work we do. I am mindful that our actions may change daily and therefore I am refraining from being too specific, but if you want more information please contact office1@kentautistic.com or contact the Manager directly, please see website.
If you were due to meet any of our staff please contact us on the above email, we will respond to you as soon as we can.
Prior preparation A robust approach to risk management and operational effectiveness is integral to our business. We have been prepared for abnormal events for some time through our Business Continuity Plan (BCP). Our BCP identifies the process that we should follow under a wide range of scenarios, including natural disasters, acts of terrorism, data breaches, power and transport failures and major sickness outbreaks, such as pandemics.
We are following closely the advice from Public Health and NHS England any other announcements so that we give the most up to date information and advice to the people we support and our staff.
Operational resilience
We have stepped up our cleaning schedules and we are communicating and supporting the staff daily in achieving the most effective approaches.
We have risk assessed and prepared for less staff on duty in case absence rates force us to manage situations differently.
We have strategies in place for visitors and families and we communicating our strategy with them.
We have ceased some non-urgent and non-essential provision and events so that we reduce cross infection and focus on what is essential and more urgent.
We have changed some of our activities and routines to reduce the risk and delay infection, this includes receiving day service from the home.
We may not be able to carry out all our usual obligations within a timely manner because our focus is on the safety and the smooth running of the 24 hour support.
We may also change some prior agreements in favour of ensuring the safety of the people we support.
Our investment in technology and infrastructure ensures that the business will be able to cope with significant and potentially disruptive events. Some of our employees can work from home and are able to remotely-access our systems within a secure IT environment / GDPR guidelines. We can connect with our teams and staff using video conferencing and will use this to replace face-to-face meetings.
We have action plans in place for should a person we support become ill and we have also plans in place for the staff should they become ill.
We follow NHS England’s advice to ensure the most up to date information is available to everyone.
The coronavirus outbreak is clearly a constantly evolving situation both in terms of infection rates and the impact on business. We wanted to take the time to reassure you that we are taking sensible precautions to minimise the potential impact on both the people we support and employees, while ensuring we are able to deliver the best standards.
Christine Edwards-Daem - CEO
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