Dear staff,

I hope you and your families continue to keep well and safe.

We have now been experiencing this unprecedented situation for around 3 months, and it is difficult sometimes to remember what life was like before. That said it is positive that we are moving towards some more easing of lockdown measures and I hope that this has made a difference to you and your families and the people you support.

I hope that you are all managing to keep well and coping with the “new normal”. I continue to be humbled by your ongoing commitment and I have enjoyed speaking with many of you over the last couple of months and hearing how creative, flexible and dedicated you are in ensuring the people we support experience as little disruption as possible and are able to continue lead as full and active lives as possible within the current situation. A huge thank you also goes to the Leadership team who have lead their teams and the organisation steadfastly during this time, to our colleagues in the Business Support Team for all their efforts in keeping things running smoothly and all the additional work due to COVID-19. Thank you also to our Help Yourself Grow team who have kept in touch with HYG attendees and provided great support to the wider organisation and sought out opportunities for funding.

As we continue to anticipate more easing of lockdown measures and respond to the needs of people we support many of whom have had service reductions for several weeks, we will continue to review and monitor this with a view to increasing our service delivery in line with latest guidance. This will mean that some of you may return to delivering services that you delivered before lockdown, or work in other services. I would like to reassure everyone that any changes or reintroductions to service delivery will be done in line with all latest government and NHS guidelines and will be fully risk assessed to ensure we minimise risks to both our staff and the people we support. I am confident that together we will be able to make the right decisions at the right time to ensure everyone receives the appropriate level of support.

The following is brief summary of the latest updates:

Scottish Living Wage

We have now received written confirmation from our commissioning authorities regarding payment of the Scottish Living Wage and as such we are now in a position to pay our frontline support workers the new living wage of £9.30. We aim to include this within the June salary payment and this will be backdated to 6^th April 2020.

COVID-19 Testing

As previously mentioned, anyone can now be tested if they experience symptoms or live with someone who has symptoms. This can be arranged via your Team Leader so please continue to report these issues as soon as you become unwell or become aware of a person you live with experiencing symptoms. The link in the next section provides advice and guidance on COVID-19 testing. The link below provides useful information on the testing of keyworkers:

https://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/publications/DC20200325guidance.pdf

PPE

We continue to access stocks of PPE and these are delivered to relevant services on a weekly basis. We issue PPE in line with latest NHS/Government guidance and the latest PPE guidelines can be found at the link below.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878750/T2_poster_Recommended_PPE_for_primary__outpatient__community_and_social_care_by_setting.pdf

The latest guidance advises that Nitrile gloves should be used for all personal care tasks and these are being issued on an ongoing basis to all services. Please be reminded however that vinyl gloves should be used for all other tasks such as cleaning and non personal-care related tasks.

Social and Leisure Provision

Our full social and leisure programme is now being delivered 5 days per week online via Zoom. Introductory packs and joining instructions have been sent to all of the people we support. Please get in touch if you require any info/support in accessing this with the person you are supporting. Uptake is increasing each week and feedback from the sessions has been really positive and people seem to be enjoying the opportunity to see some familiar faces and catch up as well as take part in the activities. A big thank you to Ryan and Suzanne for their input in coordinating this.

Zoom

Just a reminder that I continue to host a weekly zoom session for all staff every Wed @ 6.30pm and this provides an opportunity for you to come and ask questions and hear the latest updates. The link for these meetings is https://us04web.zoom.us/j/433474829?pwd=SWtORW0zQ3F4ZjhEc3RMTlk1NEpYQT09

There is also a weekly zoom session where I catch up with the people we support, please do encourage anyone you are supporting who might want a chat to join. They are every Wed @ 1pm and the link is included in the Social and Leisure timetable.

Wellbeing Fund

We recently secured funding from the wellbeing fund which will allow us to purchase items to support the social and leisure delivery. We will be looking at items such as musical instruments, arts and craft materials etc for people to use at home. We will provide more information on this in the coming days and weeks.

Kenny McLiver Award

It is that time of year already where we are looking for nominations for the Kenny McLiver awards for 2020. The three categories are Empowering, Innovative and Encouraging in line with our organisational values. Information on how to nominate will be sent out in the coming days but in the meantime please do give some thought to nominating a colleague/team who you feel deserves to be honoured in this years awards.

Take Care and Stay Safe,

Fiona Dunwoodie

Chief Executive