Cornwall Partners in Care News

You are no doubt aware that CQC will be publishing mortality data for Care Homes on 21^st July. If you have not already, you should shortly be receiving the information about what this means for your service, giving you some time to prepare before it is published.
 
The data will cover the period between 10^th April 2020 to the 31^st March 2021 and may vary from your own understanding due to the way in which deaths have been recorded.
 
It is really important to think about how your service will handle this as the experience in Scotland showed a great deal media interest at a local/care home level.
 
Mindful that this is very sensitive information, we are sharing some tips on how to deal with those first contacts from the media, and how to shape any further messages in an empathic, but positive way. It might be worth making sure your staff have seen it so they can be ready if they happen to be the one to pick up the phone to someone from the media. The media are well versed in calling out of hours to catch people unprepared.
 
It has also been suggested that Providers might want to consider contacting families of existing residents as well as loved ones that have passed away due to Covid as they may see statistics published for your home that include their family member.

MEDIA REQUESTS
 
Tips for dealing with media requests: 

• You do not need to provide information straight away. Always take details of the journalist and say you’ll get back to them
• Ask for the journalist’s deadline
• Ask what the context of the story is, and what is it centred around. Ask whether they are asking for quotes from anyone else?
• Even if the journalist phones, ask them to also email their request through – always good to have a record and ensures you haven’t mis-interpreted anything
• Don’t just say ‘no comment’ – this comes across as perhaps you have something to hide, are not being transparent or don’t care. Always provide some sort of statement when requested, even if it doesn’t say much or go into details
• If you want to provide a journalist with relevant background info that is not to be quoted but could help shape a story – tell the journalist the information is off the record and not for publication

Possible statements/general key messages 

• Our staff worked tirelessly during the peak of the pandemic to provide support to our residents
• The safety of our staff and residents is our absolute top priority
• COVID-19 has been an incredibly difficult situation to deal with. We have worked so hard to keep residents safe.
• COVID-19 has been devastating for the care sector, and our thoughts go out to the loved ones of anyone who has lost their lives to COVID-19
• Despite the impact of the pandemic, our staff remain committed to providing the best care for the people they support
• We are desperately sad for anyone who has lost a loved one to COVID-19 – this virus has affected so many lives

You may also need to think about how staff should respond if they receive comments or questions via social media, which may be as simple as referring the person to your service/organisation if someone has a legitimate question or comment.

If you are contacted and you would rather not speak to the media yourself, you are very welcome to suggest that they contact CPIC via mail@cornwallpartnersincare.org and we will arrange to talk with them on behalf of the sector. It can be a very tricky conversation and there will be lots of emotions, so just let us know if we can help. To be clear, we will not talk about individual homes, but rather the background and context including the early discharge decisions and lack of PPE, through to the virulence of the variants of concern and the calls by both health & social care leaders to be able to use better/enhanced PPE.