Guidance on attending an appointment in your home
Our priority is to keep you, your family and our staff safe so we have made some changes to how we run appointments in your home to help keep you safe.
If we usually visit you at home we will continue to do this if necessary. We appreciate your support which will help us to provide the best possible care in the community.
A telephone or video appointment may be offered before the planned visit in order to reduce time spent face to face.
Before your appointment you will be contacted and asked a couple of questions to determine whether you might be ill with any of the symptoms of coronavirus. The questions have been introduced for the safety and wellbeing of all patients and staff.
Please try and ensure that your appointment can take place in a well ventilated room. If possible open windows before a staff member arrives and please thoroughly wash your hands before your appointment.
All our staff are required to wear full Personal Protective Equipment (or PPE) throughout your appointment which may include masks, visors, aprons and gloves as appropriate, following the National Infection Prevention and Control Guidance.
PPE will be put on immediately upon entering your home, just inside the doorway or in the entrance hall. Please ensure they have enough space which is 2 metres away from anyone in the property to do so. You will also need to wear a face covering if possible.
The healthcare professional visiting will clean their hands before putting on their disposable gloves and on some occasions they may need to wash their hands after care. They will use their own disposable paper towels or wipes.
At the end of our visit, we will provide instructions on the safe disposal of used PPE and any other waste generated during the visit.
We know that this is a new way of doing things, if you have any questions or things don’t go to plan, you can contact us again on the telephone. We will then work with you to see how we can provide care in a way that is suited to your needs.
Our staff may ask you to move to support social distancing or to wash your hands and we appreciate your cooperation to keep everyone safe.
Try to keep a two metre gap between you and the NHS staff member in your home as much as possible.
If other household members are going to be at home please ask them to stay in another room for the duration of the appointment.
For more information you can watch our animated video below:
You must not have an appointment at home if you have symptoms of Coronavirus – these are:
If any member of your household or ‘bubble’ has any symptoms you must stay at home and follow the guidelines for self-isolating. Please ring the number on your appointment letter to arrange a new appointment time if you are showing any of these symptoms.
