Published 6th August 2020
Residential Aged Care Facilities are being reminded of the need to have up-to-date contact details for the authorised representative of each resident living within the facility.
As a part of your ongoing preparedness to manage a potential case of COVID-19, it is important that correct contact details, including a mobile telephone number and email address, are held for the primary contact of each resident. These details should be readily available to facilitate prompt and regular communication with residents’ families in the instance of a COVID-19 case being linked to the facility.
It is recommended you contact all authorised representatives to ensure the contact details you hold are appropriate, and to remind them that they will be the primary contact should the facility need to communicate with families about a COVID-19 case or outbreak.
Authorised representatives should be encouraged to share the information they receive directly from providers about their loved one’s health and wellbeing with wider family and friends.
The Department of Health has published a new guide on face shield use. In addition to the requirement for all Victorian aged care workers to wear face masks, aged care workers in Victorian residential aged care facilities are now advised to wear face shields as a precautionary measure.
When worn together with a properly fitted surgical mask, face shields offer protection from contamination to others, as well as to the wearer.
The training guide on face shield use contains instructions on how to safely put on and take off (donn and doff) a face shield, as well as cleaning and disinfecting instructions.
Providers are reminded however that the face shields being distributed from the National Medical Stockpile (NMS) to all residential aged care facilities in Victoria are single use.
Increased restrictions have been put in place for residential aged care facilities in Queensland. All residential aged care facilities, no matter where they are located must have a workforce management plan in place that makes it mandatory for employees to:
Due to recently announced cases in Queensland extra restrictions have now been put in place for residential aged care facilities in:
For visitors:
For residents :
For staff:
The Queensland advice can be found here.
The state’s Chief Health Officer has advised all NSW aged care facilities must ensure:
The local government area of Bankstown has also been added to the list of regions required to implement the following measures:
Home Care Service Providers who either live or work in any of these designated local government areas must also wear face masks while providing services.
Veiw the latest NSW Health advice for residential providers and home care providers.
All aged care service providers are reminded that you must immediately notify the Commonwealth Department of Health of any COVID-19 cases among residents and staff.
Email the Department of Health at .
This notification is essential for the activation of Commonwealth support including rapid access to PPE from the National Medical Stockpile, case management, surge workforce support and supplementary pathology testing.
This notification to the Department of Health is in addition to notifying your Public Health Unit.
For more information on COVID-19 outbreak preparedness and management, refer to the CDNA National Guidelines.
Source:Unknown Author, 2020, Department of Health
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