2020 – What a Year!

2020 was an odd and challenging year for everyone – including those in our care home and for me, as the owner of Marshview.

It started right from January, looking at the news about other countries and thinking, will that be us? COVID-19 soon made its impact on the UK.

Throughout the first couple of months we worked on lots of strategies and created the longest “if that happens” action list!

On 23 March, lockdown struck.

A new kind of visiting experience

We had to quickly adapt to ensure our residents could still see their loved ones.

Of course, this could not happen face to face, so window visits began.

As the weather got warmer we could have supervised visits in the garden. We were really lucky with the lovely weather we experienced for weeks on end.

But the weather can be very unpredictable, so we planned ahead and invested in a large tent for wet weather occasions. But with the changing seasons it did, of course, eventually became too cold and damp for our residents to be outside.

Now time to think of (another) new solution

So outside was off limits and we had to identify a solution indoors.

We thought the best approach was to use a bedroom that was the nearest room to the fire escape. This allowed visitors to access the care home by just walking directly into the room rather than all through the building, reducing any risks.

Our residents have been so wonderful with how they have handled everything, especially the visiting restrictions. They have been very keen to try many different ways of seeing their relatives.

Our proudest moment…

Throughout the whole of 2020 we did not have one case of COVID-19 in our home. This is a real proud moment for our staff and a clear acknowledgement of their hard work.

It’s reassuring for our residents and their families to know that their loved ones are in safe hands.

Since the beginning of March, there has no been no outside entertainment visiting the home.

But our amazing staff have happily continued with providing a range of activities and trying new ones. This has ranged from baking and planting in the summer and again with winter bulbs, to cinema afternoons with an interval for cake. Not forgetting painting, quizzes, bingo, bowls and giant snakes and ladders.

Adapting to change

All the way through 2020 there has been guidance and regulation from the government. On some days there would be two or three different changes which we would have to adapt to.

This has been very trying and time consuming for our manager, Sam. But she has risen to every change and worked her way to a happy solution for all our residents and staff.

There has been consistent reporting to CQC, with more information required by the Government.

We did receive a grant from the local authority towards PPE soon after the outbreak. We are grateful that the government did eventually include care homes in the supply of PPE, but there have been many hoops to go through to receive the supply.

Marshview had a lovely Christmas. The advice was initially to not allow decorations, but this changed. So we managed to have decorations around the home, but they had to be sanitised daily.

The festive decorations bring a lot of delight and happiness to our residents. We still had a residents’ party, although sadly without loved ones present. But we all remain positive and make the best of everything we can.

Looking forward to 2021!

We’ll soon have a testing system in place which will allow relatives who have a negative test result into the home.

It will, of course, take time for all care homes to be supplied with testing kits and we are a small home in comparison with the larger corporate chains. In light of recent publications regarding the accuracy of these tests, we shall reconsider using them when there is more information available.

The testing of relatives is a job that the care home manager and staff will undertake. Currently, all care home staff are tested weekly, the residents are tested monthly. With the new testing system, the plan will be for staff will be tested twice a week and residents once a week.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2021.

Best wishes
Maria Mapletoft