“COVID-19 was a devastating event for the social care system in England and affected so many people who draw on, provide and organise care and support. Now that we have entered a new phase of managing this pandemic, it is important that lessons are learnt about what could be improved for the future. There is a window of opportunity to reflect on what happened in the English social care system but also to learn from other countries about what helped and hindered their response.

The Care Policy and Evaluation Centre (CPEC) at LSE and the Nuffield Trust have been carrying out the Social Care COVID Resilience and Recovery project funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research to inform policy and practice as the social care sector in England recovers from COVID-19, and to put the sector on a more resilient footing for the longer-term.

This series of four webinars will reflect on what England should learn from the experiences of social care systems in Japan, France, Denmark and the Netherlands during COVID-19. In each webinar we will consider how resilient the system was going into COVID-19, how prepared it was in the face of COVID-19 and what changes it is now planning to make to strengthen social care for the future.

• Lessons from Netherlands: 21st February 2023, 3 to 4pm (UK time), with Nick Zonnenveld (VILANS), to register: https://socialcarerandr-webinar1.eventbrite.co.uk
• Lessons from Denmark: 23rd February 2023, 4 to 5pm (UK time) with Professor Tine Rostgaard (Roskilde University), to register: https://socialcarerandr-webinar2.eventbrite.co.uk
• Lessons from Japan: 28th February 2023, 3 to 4pm (UK time) with Dr Margarita Estevez-Abe (Syracuse University), to register: https://socialcarerandr-webinar3.eventbrite.co.uk
• Lessons from France: 10th March 2023, 9.30 to 10.30am (UK time) with from Alis Sopadzhiyan (French School of Public Health) and Camille Oung (Nuffield Trust), to register: https://socialcarerandr-webinar4.eventbrite.co.uk

For more details please see: https://ltccovid.org/2023/02/07/webinars-what-can-the-english-social-care-sector-learn-from-the-netherlands-denmark-japan-and-france-to-recover-from-the-covid-pandemic-and-become-more-resilient/“

“The THRIVE study aimed to understand nurses’ experiences of working in care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how their experience impacted on resilience, mental health and wellbeing.

The study highlighted not only a range of strategies to help nurses accept and recover from their experiences, but also suggestions for better preparation methods for future pandemics.

Findings will be presented at the winter symposium of the British Society of Gerontology’s Care Homes Research Special Interest Group on 22 February 2023, 12pm to 2pm. The symposium is being held online and will focus on wellbeing and resilience among staff working in care homes for older people.

Thank you to the care homes and nurses who took part in this study. The THRIVE Report is available to download from the University of East Anglia’s THRIVE study page.”

Research funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing and supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration East of England.

A study funded by the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) focused on the design of residential long-term care (RLTC) and the role of the built environment, in terms of creating a balanced approach to COVID-19 infection control and quality of life.

A report providing the key findings and recommendations are set out that apply both to the retrofit of existing settings and the design of new-build settings. The research largely shows how well-designed environments create a convergence between good infection control and a higher quality of life, while also contributing to greater resilience for residents and staff.

For access to this report click here 

Researchers from The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and The London School of Economics discuss whether the UK Government Really did throw a protective ring around care homes during the Covid-19 Pandemic.

The objectives of the study were to: “examine COVID-19 policies for care homes in England and to describe providers’ experiences of those policies in May and June 2020.”

The methods they used were: “Mixed methods including policy analysis and an anonymous online survey of English care home providers, recruited using webinars and WhatsApp groups about their experiences of funding, testing, PPE, isolation and staffing until the end of May and early June 2020.”

Their findings are:  “Although social care policies in England have aligned with those advised by the World Health Organization, they were arguably delayed and were not implemented effectively. Testing had taken place in 70% of care homes surveyed but only 36% of residents had been tested, of whom 16% were positive. Managers were unable to effectively implement isolation policies and reported that workforce and funding support did not always reach them. Guidance changed frequently and was conflicting and could not always be implemented, for example when personal protection equipment was extremely expensive and difficult to source.”

For full details of this paper click here

Researchers:

Selina Rajan, The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, GB

Adelina Comas-Herrera, The London School of Economics, GB

Martin Mckee. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, GB

Do you work in a care home for older people?

Researchers at the University of East Anglia are looking for any member of care-home staff (e.g., office, catering, ground/estates, care, manager) to take part in a survey about working during the pandemic.

This is a survey that is being conducted as part of the UCAIRE study, which explores how staff who work in older people’s care homes coped with preventing spread and transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, in order to inform development of guidelines and support in managing future outbreaks of infectious diseases in care homes. The survey initially ran last autumn, and is now running again to gather longitudinal data and look at any changes in the interim.

Those who complete the survey will have the chance to win one of ten £10 Amazon e-vouchers, to be drawn at random when the survey closes.  The survey ends on 15 May 2022.  For more details, please click here

“The NIHR SSCR-funded study, UCAIRE (https://www.sscr.nihr.ac.uk/projects/p178/), is exploring the lived experience of infection transmission in care homes.  Staff working in any role in older people’s care homes are invited to take the UCAIRE online survey.  Inclusion criteria for the online survey:

Aged ≥18yrs and have worked ≥8 shifts in the UK in the last four month

Employed in any job role in an older people’s care home (e.g., office, estates, domestic, caring, management

The survey takes about 10-12 minutes to complete.  It is available until 15 May 2022.

Respondents will be offered the chance to win one of ten £10 e-vouchers after the survey closes in mid-May.

This online survey follows one UCAIRE held in autumn 2021.  Results from the survey running in spring 2022 will help us determine if staff experiences of infection-control measures are similar to or different from what staff reported in an earlier phase of the pandemic.

To take the survey for care-home staff, please follow this link.

If you work in a care home, we would be grateful if you passed along this notice to make all care-home staff aware of the online survey.

If you have colleagues who link with older people’s care homes, we would also appreciate you relaying this email to them.

Please contact the Principal Investigator with any questions about UCAIRE:

Dr Kathleen Lane, Research Fellow, University of East Anglia (UEA), kathleen.lane@uea.ac.uk”

The LTCcovid International Living report is a “wiki-style” report addressing 68 questions on characteristics of Long-Term Care (LTC) systems, impacts of COVID-19 on LTC, measures adopted to mitigate these impacts and new reforms countries are adopting to address structural problems in LTC systems and to improved preparedness for future events. It is compiled and updated voluntarily by experts on LTC all over the world. Members of the Social Care COVID-19 Resilience and Recovery project are moderating the entries and editing as needed.

The report can be read by question/topic (below) or by country: COVID-19 and Long-Term Care country profiles.

For more details please click here

“Margaret Butterworth Care Home Forum is a forum for discussion and learning focused on dementia care in communal settings such as nursing homes, care homes and extra care housing. There will be 3 webinars over the course of 2022. The first webinar on 23 March 2022, from 2.00-4.00 will focus on the theme ‘Visiting in care homes during Covid-19’.

Two speakers will discuss this topic:

Josie Dixon, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, Care Policy and Evaluation Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, will discuss the study Visit-id: a study of care home visiting arrangements during Covid-19

Dr Kathleen Lane, PI of UCAIRE study, University of East Anglia, will talk about the study titled “We can’t visit and see what’s going on for her… it’s like having paper-bags over our heads”: experiences of infection-control measures on family and friends of care-home residents during Covid-19

We will have plenty of time for questions and discussions. Once you have registered on Eventbrite, you will receive the Zoom-link a few days before the webinar.”

To register click here

“For this paper, researchers studied blood samples from 202 staff and 286 residents in care homes to investigate their antibody and cellular immune responses following COVID-19 vaccination. Blood sampling was carried out between December 2020 and June 2021.

Results

Antibody responses following dual vaccination in both staff (younger than 65 years) and residents (older than 65 years) with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection were strong and similar across all age groups.

Antibody responses were just over 8 times (8.1) lower in elderly residents who had not had prior natural SARS-CoV-2 infection compared to those with previous infection. In contrast these values were just under 2 and a half times (2.4) lower in care home staff, suggesting that younger age may help to overcome this effect.
This means that care home residents without prior infection had just over 2 and a half times (2.6) lower antibody response than the younger staff.

Cellular immunity is also thought to be important in controlling disease severity. Spike-specific T cell responses were seen to be 52% lower in residents without prior natural infection compared to those who had previously had a natural infection.

If you would like more information on Vivaldi 3 or the preceding studies click here 

Visit-id is a research study about care home visiting policies during COVID-19.

The study team are looking for care home managers (or nominated senior staff members) to complete a short 20-30 minute online qualitative survey and to provide their visiting policy.  If preferred, the survey can be completed over the telephone or zoom call with a researcher or we can send a paper copy.

The study team would also like to undertake follow-up qualitative interviews with care home managers and one or two colleagues in a small number of care homes.  You will be asked whether you are interested in taking part after completing the survey.  Care homes that take part will receive £75 for their activity fund.

You can take part by clicking here 

Or if you would prefer to complete over the telephone or have any questions contact Josie Dixon (j.e.dixon@lse.ac.uk)