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.