What are we doing to help our older and more vulnerable people?

Following the latest advice from the Government and from Public Health England (PHE), we are continuing to work hard to minimise both the risk of Coronavirus and the wider impacts that social distancing measures will inevitably have on some of the older people we house or support in our homes and extra care schemes.

We want to reassure all our residents, service users, their family members and the wider community that we are very carefully following guidance from the Care Quality Commission and PHE. This includes temporarily suspending all group social activities such as the Kensington Day Centre for older adults, all creative sessions and group Befriending and non-essential visits to older residents in our schemes. We are also more carefully managing visits to residents from loved ones.

However, we are working hard to keep as many services going as possible. We have been contacting all residents and service users who are over 70 to offer our support where we can. We are also providing one-to-one phone Befriending sessions to ensure that isolated and vulnerable people still have some regular social contact, and we are diverting staff where possible to assist with shopping and basic support for those most in need. We will continue to work with Local Authority partners to help as much as we can.

Elsewhere in the wider community, our Communal Services colleagues are offering help to residents and others who we know may need extra support at this time and we are asking for residents to let us know if they have concerns about any neighbours who may need some support, so that we can make contact.

A huge thank you to all our staff and volunteers who are keeping these services going. If you can help us by volunteering with us too, please get in touch. We may not be able to get back to you straight away, but the currrent situation is likely to continue for some time and we will follow this up with you as soon as we can. You can apply to be an Octavia volunteer online here: https://www.octaviafoundation.org.uk/volunteer/apply_now