Indoor visiting has resumed at Deddington-based care home Featherton House. With a typically warm welcome, residents’ first designated visitors have been reunited with their loved ones inside of the home.
The recently announced government guidance for care home visiting enables each resident to nominate one person to visit indoors each week. Following the release of the guidance, the Featherton House team completed a series of dynamic risk assessments. These ensure that indoor visiting can be reintroduced in the safest possible way. They take the layout and location of the home into account, alongside dynamic risk assessments for each resident. This allows the home to tailor a safe visiting plan for each individual in its care.
On Tuesday 9th March, the first safe indoor visits of 2021 took place at Featherton House. Terry Baker was among the first of the residents’ designated visitors. After a negative lateral flow test result and wearing appropriate PPE, Terry visited her mother Jessica in her own room.
In an email to the team at the home reflecting on her visit, Terry said: “A huge thank you to all the staff at Featherton. You made my first visit back to see mum after all these months a really special experience. You were all so welcoming and caring. Any anxiety disappeared immediately as I walked thru’ the door. Well done and thank you all for your continuing hard work.”
In the last few weeks, there have been some heartwarming reunions, lots of happy tears and thanks to lateral flow testing and PPE, plenty of long-awaited hand-holding.
Agi Rygala, home manager at Featherton House, said: “It has been wonderful to welcome our residents’ designated visitors back inside the home. Although we were able to hold outdoor visits before the winter, reuniting loved ones in their own rooms is a huge step forward. Thank you to all of our residents and their relatives for their incredible patience and understanding over the last year, and for adapting to our infection control and testing procedures for indoor visiting so quickly. The indoor visits have brought our residents an immense amount of joy already!”
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