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Covid-19 Updates

Feros Care is maintaining an ever vigilant and long-term approach to managing COVID-19 for the safety of our customers, their families, our staff and volunteers. It is one of our highest priorities and we continue to take the direction of the Commonwealth and State Departments of Health as well as our peak bodies.

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General Information as at September 2022

General COVID-19 Feros Care Response

In 2022 we continue the vigilance to keep all staff and customers safe.

We will continue to make sure our protocols, processes and proactive precautionary methods remain of the highest standard and incorporate the latest guidance from the Department of Health, our peak bodies and other aged care providers.

Our own dedicated Emergency Control team will continue to meet and manage the coordinated approach – at the ready in case the COVID-19 situation changes unexpectedly in any location.

Throughout the pandemic advice and restrictions have evolved. We endeavour to keep everyone up to date on these changes and to respond appropriately.

UPDATE: VACCINATIONS

Vaccinations for care workers in the community/working in clients’ homes – as at 11 August 2022

The State Governments in VIC, ACT, QLD and NSW have mandated COVID-19 vaccinations for all community care workers. Feros Care is complying with these mandates to ensure the safety of all clients and staff. However, whilst we have been anticipating these mandates and preparing for them for some time now to ensure ongoing delivery of services, you may notice some temporary disruption to your usual service times and care workers. Please bear with us while these changes are implemented, as we are doing everything we can to minimise any disruption. If you do have any questions at all regarding your services, please contact us on 1300 763 583 or via the MyFeros portal.

Please check relevant websites for guidance and directives in each state & territory.

Some of our key preventative measures to minimise the risk of transmission include:

Daily wellness checks of clients and residents for any flu-like symptoms supported by immediate reporting protocols
Wellness and temperature checks of any visitors or contractors entering our Residential Villages
Daily wellness and temperature checks for all direct care staff prior to every shift
Personal Protective Equipment [PPE] for all staff doing personal care services
Feros Care has sent clients in hotspot areas PPE packs directly to their home
Masks provided for all Residential Village visitors when visiting
Visitor restrictions for our Residential Villages as per Federal and State Government directives
Support for residents to have virtual visits using Skype, FaceTime, mobiles
Support for residents to have virtual GP or specialist consultations
Additional and higher grade premises cleaning
Increased frequency of infection control training and full-drill PPE put-on [don] and take-off [doff] sessions

What else are we doing to support our residents, clients and participants:

We have been conducting wellness phone calls to check in on our clients at home
We have been involving and consulting with our residents and their families on the ongoing situation
We support clients/residents to access our Virtual Social Centre which provides an online social connection platform where customers can choose their topic of interest to watch
We support clients/residents to access virtual visits from family so they stay connected
We provide virtual assessments, appointments and meetings
A comprehensive communication plan for families and customers over our website, our client portal MyFeros, newsletters, forums, surveys, hard copy letters, phone calls

During this time, we would like to send a strong reminder to all of our customers and family members of the critical importance of frequent hand washing, coughing into crook of your arm, binning used tissues, social distancing and avoiding close contact with others if you are feeling unwell.

For further information, we guide you to the department of health who are providing regular updates and information:

2. Residential Villages Information as at 24 October 2022

UPDATE: RESIDENTIAL VILLAGES

New rules have been set by the government on Friday 14 October 2022 regarding the management of COVID-19 in the general community and residential aged care in Australia.

The key changes in the general community from 14 October are:

It is no longer a legal requirement for people diagnosed with COVID-19 to isolate [please note this does not apply to entering residential aged care];
If you are diagnosed with COVID-19 it is strongly recommended you stay home and take steps to protect others;
Workers providing close personal care in high-risk environments (such as residential aged care) must not attend work for 7 days after testing positive for COVID-19 and while symptoms persist

Please note that to keep our vulnerable members of the community healthy and safe Feros Care residential villages will still be implementing the following process for visitors:

On entry to our residential villages, visitors will be asked to confirm:

That they have undertaken and received a negative result from a COVID-19 RAT on the same day that they attend the village.
that they have not been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19
That they do not any symptoms of COVID-19 (other than symptoms caused by a known health condition or medication), or waiting for a COVID-19 test result.

That they have not tested positive to COVID-19 in the last 7 days.
If a visitor does not meet any of the above criteria and a visit is considered essential, a request must be made to the village directly to undertake a risk assessment.

Emergency service providers are not considered visitors.

For more details of the government changes, please see the NSW government advice to residential aged care facilities page.