Bilton Court

We found the following examples of good practice.

Safe arrangements were in place for visitors to the service including relatives and friends, professionals and others. This included a booking system, rapid LFD testing, showing evidence of vaccination, hand washing and sign in process.

Isolation, co-horting and zoning were used to manage the risk of infection spread. This meant people self- isolated in their rooms when necessary and staff were allocated to work in certain areas of the service should anyone test positive for COVID-19.

Enhanced cleaning and disinfection of all areas of the service continued to take place to reduce the risk of cross contamination.

There was plenty of personal protective equipment (PPE) including masks, gloves, aprons and hand sanitiser available. PPE stations were located around the service. Used PPE was disposed of safely in clinical bins.

Staff followed good practice by changing into and out of their uniforms in an allocated room, and kept their personal belongings in plastic bags to reduce the risk of any infection spread.

A regular programme of testing for COVID-19 was in place for staff and people who lived in the service. This meant swift action could be taken if anyone received a positive test result.

The staff team worked together to cover any vacant shifts to ensure safe staffing levels were always maintained. Agency staff were sometimes used when essential, and processes were followed to enable this safely.

The registered manager had good oversight of infection prevention and control processes. They undertook regular quality assurance checks. Policies and procedures were in place and up to date, which supported good practice in all areas of infection prevention and control.

The five questions we ask about services and what we found