The health, safety and welfare of both the service users and employees of The Maples Community has always been at the forefront of our objectives in running and delivering support services and that philosophy is no less true during these times of national emergency. The Maples Community maintains its commitment to those in our care and to our dedicated employees during these unprecedented and difficult times and we will continue to provide essential and vital support to our service users who are some of the most vulnerable members of our community throughout this crisis. 

 

Since the government confirmed that COVID-19 had reached the UK The Maples Community developed new support strategies and developed new systems of working in order to maintain critical and essential functions in the event that an epidemic was declared within our locality or that a pandemic was declared by the World Health Organisation on a global scale. We developed a three tier model to implement at different stages as the virus progressed including protocols to trigger as different stages of virus progression within the UK and in anticipation of emergency measures being triggered by the government.  

 

Our strategies and working practices have been developed following guidance released by the government, Public Health England and local partnership agencies within the localities in which we operate and they will remain constantly under review as the situation changes and new guidance is released.

 

We can confirm at this time that The Maples Community, since the lock down announcement by the government was declared, have triggered our emergency protocols however we will continue to deliver vital and essential functions to those we support whilst endeavouring to minimise the contamination and spread of infection and we are supporting our clients to observe the government guidelines.  

 

Due to the nature of our service our employees are also vulnerable at this time much like all other front line services and therefore we have also taken steps to safeguard those most vulnerable within our employment.  As a result where possible these employees are now working from home however will continue to offer support solutions to our clients over the telephone.  We have developed dedicated teams both working from home and within the field (day and night) to continue to support our service users during this difficult time. 

 

We are also developing collaborative systems of working with other providers within our locality where we hope to collectively support each other and share resources where this is practicable and safe to do so. 

 

We appreciate that family and friends are understandably concerned however we ask that you do not visit any of our services to help in our endeavours to minimise infection and spread.  We have established a dedicated family and friends line for to you contact 0117 3016161.  Please be advised that we are only permitted to share information with you where consent has been expressly granted by our service users so please do not be offended if we are unable to answer your questions.  We will keep consent constantly under review. During these times of isolation we ask that you do reach out to your loved ones over the phone where possible and you are able to do this as this can help stem the loneliness and anxiety many people are feeling in the current situation.  

 

If you are a professional who is required to visit any of our services users during this pandemic we ask that you contact our head office in the first instance on 0117 3026160 so that we can risk assess the situation and provide you with the necessary PPE before entering any of our schemes.  

 

We thank you for your continued support during this time.