Carers zoom meeting – 5th Jan 2021

We had 23 members this evening. Lisa welcomed everyone giving best wishes for the New year and also welcomed Eshwan Seedoyal – Barnet Memory Service Team Leader and also welcomed Andrew Wrench – Community Development Manager at Carlton Court Care Home. Lisa opened the meeting to talk about the recent announcement of National lockdown and also about people’s concerns about receiving vaccinations. Lisa asked Eshwan and Andrew to first give everyone an update.

Andrew reported that Lateral Flow tests were now being done for care staff every morning and they were using the Hair Salon as a laboratory testing room. He also confirmed that nearly all the residents now have had their first vaccine. Staff are still also having a PCR test twice a week.

Eshwan reported that some of the staff contracted Covid but they were still managing and were being very careful. Eshwan said that this second Covid wave was not good. They are only now dealing with emergencies.

Lisa then opened the meeting to members and they asked various questions to Andrew and Eshwan. There were other discussions about personal issues and challenges and this led to a discussion about Lasting Powers of Attorney ‘LPA’ and how important it is to have a financial one and a health one. Lisa explained to everyone how she has completed her LPAs online on the Government website and explained what was required. Everyone was very pleased to learn about this.

Before the meeting closed, Lisa then asked Andrew whether he would be happy to do an informal training at our group meeting for 30 minutes. One of the subjects suggested was about how to deal with challenging behaviour. Andrew said that he would be very interested and will discuss this further with Lisa.

Lisa thanked Andrew and Eshwan and everyone also thanked Lisa and for this interesting and informative meeting.