Aria Care Home Purchases Defibrillator

Aria Care Care has purchased and installed a semi-automatic defibrillator in the home, having acquired the device Jack’s Appeal.

The defibrillator is located in the home, and can be used in the event of a Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) for an individual who does not have a DNR in place.

The defibrillator is registered with thecircuit.uk and has been made aware to the Ambulance service. Along with our fully trained team in First Aid and CPR, the device will enable us to act immediately to help a person suffering from a SCA, with every second saved dramatically increasing their chances of survival.

Aria Becomes Accredited Real Living Wage Employer

Aria Care Home is proud to announce that it has today become an accredited Real Living Wage employer.

Aria Care Home is based in Wales, a region with one of the highest proportions of non-Living Wage jobs in the country (21%), with around 241,000 jobs paying less than the real Living Wage. Despite this, we have committed to pay the real Living Wage and deliver a fair day’s pay for a hard day’s work.

The Real Living Wage is the only rate calculated according to the costs of living. It provides a voluntary benchmark for employers that wish to ensure their staff earn a wage they can live on, not just the government minimum.

Although becoming a Real Living Wage employer is a happy milestone, we nevertheless consider it just the first step in a long journey ahead to achieve the right pay for our skilled workforce.

It’s a travesty that in this day and age care is a job that still competes with those in the hospitality and retail sectors for pay. Carers are significantly qualified and skilled individuals who carry a weight of responsibility caring for the most vulnerable members of our society. Their pay should reflect that appropriately, as with all jobs, and our accreditation today is only the beginning in our fight for them.

We urge all care providers to also become accredited and send a unified message that it’s time to level up care.

Circuit Break Lockdown in Wales

Following the announcement today that Welsh Government has ordered a full lockdown in Wales beginning on Friday 23rd October and running (initially) until Monday 9th November.

Does this affect visits to the Home?

At the moment we can’t confirm 100% either way. Unfortunately we do expect this lockdown to include all visits to care homes as it’s likely that travelling to a care home will constitute a breach of lockdown rules. However we are waiting on confirmation from Public Health Wales, which we hope to have over the next 24 hours.

Today’s announcement is very disappointing for those care homes that have invested time and financial resources, as well as the hospitality, retail and leisure sectors that have also spent heavily, all to make their environment Covid-safe for families, visitors and customers.

Aria created barrier visits over the Summer, and they’ve been 100% safe to date. We also naturally see barrier visits as essential travel for families, so we will be deeply saddened if they are to be banned during this 17-day lockdown.

The health of our residents, team and you is always the number one priority – but more does need to be done to balance the wellbeing of people in our community with measures to reduce the spread of Coronavirus.

Once we’ve spoken with the relevant authorities we’ll immediately share our instructions with you.

Indoor Visits Suspended Immediately

INDOOR VISITS SUSPENDED IMMEDIATELY

Unfortunately following on from our post this morning, Newport City Council have since instructed us to stop all non-essential indoor visits in the care home immediately.

They’ve informed us that this is a temporary measure while they review community transmission within the city.

Our online booking system has been suspended, and no further bookings can be made until further notice.

All those with visits from today (11/9/20) to the end of Sunday (13/9/20) will be contacted by phone to confirm cancellation. All visits next week are also cancelled.

We’re very sorry that this has had to happen, we were notified this afternoon and wanted to update you immediately.

I want to stress that Newport City Council have told us that this is only a precautionary measure while they assess cases in the Gwent region.

Our sincerest apologies – we’ll update you as soon as we know any more.

Update

VISITS

Since we opened our doors at the start of September we’ve been thrilled to welcome you back to the Home and delighted for our residents to finally see loved ones again.

I wanted to thank all of you working with our team to ensure visits are safe and run smoothly. It’s a new concept for all of us, but all of you who have visited have been brilliant in respecting our guidance, so thank you.

With that said, you’ll have seen talk of rising cases and more activity around the UK on the news, with some laws changing and local restrictions introduced. Therefore it’s worth going through some key points, how this may affect us and what can be done to help.

FACE MASKS

It’s been announced that from Monday 14th September 2020 face coverings will be mandatory indoors in Wales, including shops and other indoor public spaces.

As you know face masks are already a requirement for visitors to Aria, so I’d like to reinforce this guidance in line with today’s news:

– Face masks must be worn at all times during visits

– Face masks must not be removed at any time

– We’re unable to provide face masks to visitors

In addition, please remember that it is still only one person per visit permitted into the Home and it’s vital that you do not to make any physical contact.

RISING CASES

In addition, there are concerns you’ll have seen on the news about a rising number of cases in the UK. Caerphilly has gone into a local lockdown, and inevitably rumours will spread about other counties following suit.

In the event of a local lockdown of any kind being imposed in Newport/Gwent, we will enter a lockdown as well which will unfortunately mean having to cancel all visits until further notice. This is unless we are directly instructed differently by Public Health Wales.

However for now things are ‘business as usual’ for our indoor visits. Our advice would be to follow government guidance as best as you can to help stop the virus spreading, which in turn will prevent larger lockdowns from being brought back.

OTHER POLICY

Away from indoor visits, as you can imagine we brought in a number of new policies from March at the very start of the pandemic that has helped us remain Covid-free throughout the last six months. From enhanced infection control procedures, to social distancing, to isolation.

All of these policies remain exactly the same today as they did in March.

Public Health Wales update us regularly on all the latest guidance to follow, and we will make amendments where we’re able to, but our core policies have not changed. They’ve been major factors in keeping the virus out of Aria, and for the time being they remain in place.

I hope the rising number of cases, though small, is curbed quickly to prevent a return to some of the lockdown measures we all had to go through over the Summer. Please do take extra care of yourselves over the coming weeks when out and about.

We’ll update you as and when anything changes, but for now we keep calm and (while remembering our face masks and to maintain distance) carry on.

Visitor Guidance

From Monday 31st August 2020 we are delighted to begin opening our doors to visitors after five long months of lockdown.

In order to do so safely and fairly for all of our residents, team members and families, it is essential that our Visitor Guidance is adhered to and respected at all times.

This guidance will be continuously updated and date stamped to inform you whether or not any updates have been made, therefore please continue to check back and review.

You can view the Visitor Guidance by clicking here.

All visits are to be arranged through our custom-built booking system, which you can access via the BOOK VISIT button on the top right corner of this page.

Please note that there is only ONE booking per resident, per day. Once a booking for a resident has been made no other person will be able to access a slot for that resident until the following day.

Therefore please be respectful of all relatives and friends who wish to visit your loved one as well, and do not overbook days simply because they are available.

If you have any questions please contact us and we’ll be happy to help.

Visiting Guidance

A quick guide to our current visiting guidelines at Aria.

Things continue to evolve as we aim to return to normality in the near future, but for now we’ve created our barrier visiting policy to do what we can to bring relatives together in the safest possible way.

While the rest of society begins to open back up, it’s vital we remember that within every care home we’re still shielding residents.

Welcoming Relatives Back

As we’ve come through the worst of the COVID-19 outbreak, we’ve introduced new barrier visiting protocols to allow our residents and their loved ones to be able to see each face-to-face again in some capacity.

With no real indication of when the doors for care homes can be opened again, the sector is using its own initiative to create ways for families to be together again.

For us we’re fortunate to have both our front porch and patio area that provide suitable barriers to allow relatives to visit their loved one in accordance with our newly created policies.

We’ll continue to adapt as we receive ongoing guidance from Public Health Wales, which will hopefully culminate in our doors being open again sooner rather than later.