How our service is adapting to the challenges of COVID-19

These are unprecedented times for us all and we understand for many of our Personal Health Budget (PHB) holders and their PAs, this has been a particularly concerning time with many implications for employers and their employees.

Here at Partner2Care our priority has been to support, inform and keep our PHB holders updated on the ever changing guidance surrounding Coronavirus (COVID-19) as well as assist our colleagues within Sirona care & health (Sirona) and Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) where needed.

To date we have prevented any interruption to our service and our team have continued to progress new referrals and offer care planning, brokerage and recruitment support including telephone and video calling for care planning and PA interviews. This has been achieved even with some members of our team being re-deployed within Sirona on a part-time basis to utilise their skillsets to support other teams. These include the Learning Disabilities and Logistics teams.

During this time we have been providing additional employment and payroll support to our PHB holders and their PAs including setiing up employees on the government job retention scheme (furlough scheme).

Training for PAs has continued in addition to FIT testing for face masks (ensuring there is a good seal between a tight fitting facepiece and the wearer's face) to ensure PAs are safely able to provide care using face masks that are effective in protecting them and their PHB holders from the spread of Coronavirus.
We have recruited another trainer on bank to assist our current trainer to provide FIT testing to all our PHB holders but also in other care settings upon request.

At the beginning of April 2020 we developed a newsletter to include the latest information and guidance on COVID-19 as well as support available to our PHB holders. This newsletter is emailed weekly to our PHB holders. Copies of all our newletters can be found here.

We created a new COVID-19 specific page for our website which is regularly updated with the latest information and guidance in addition to support tools and wellbeing resources.

It has been vital that we ensure all our PHB holders have Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) available to them and despite a national shortage we have continued to order and distribute PPE not only to all our PHB holders but also to PHB holders who don't currently have a managed account with us (Direct Payment) by ordering and delivering PPE to them on behalf of the CCG.

We make regular welfare calls to all our PHB holders to ensure they have the PPE they require and the ongoing support they need during this time.

The Partner2Care team are grateful to have received positive feedback from our PHB holders for the support currently being provided to them during this pandemic.