COVID-19 causes significant mortality in elderly and vulnerable people and spreads easily in care homes where one in seven individuals aged > 85 years live. However, there is no surveillance for infection in care homes, nor are there systems (or research studies) monitoring the impact of the pandemic on individuals or systems. Usual practices are disrupted during the pandemic, and care home staff are taking on new and unfamiliar roles, such as advanced care planning. Understanding the nature of these changes is critical to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on residents, relatives and staff. 20 care homes staff members were interviewed using semi-structured interviews.The COVID-19 pandemic poses a substantial risk to elderly and vulnerable care home residents and COVID-19 can spread rapidly in care homes. We have national, daily data on people with COVID-19 and deaths, but there is no similar data for care homes. This makes it difficult to know the scale of the problem, and plan how to keep care home residents safe. We also want to understand the impact of COVID-19 on care home staff and residents. Researchers from University College London (UCL) will measure the number of cases of COVID-19 in care homes, using data from Four Seasons Healthcare, a large care home chain. FSHC remove residents' names and addresses before sending the dataset to UCL, protecting resident's confidentiality. Since we cannot visit care homes during the pandemic, we will hold virtual (online) discussion meetings with care home stakeholders (staff, residents, relatives, General Practice teams) every 6-8 weeks, to learn rapid lessons about managing COVID-19 in care homes and identify pragmatic solutions. Our findings will be shared with FHSC, GPs and Public Health England, patients and the public, and support the national response to COVID-19. Patients and the public will be involved in all stages of the research.
We conducted telephone interviews with 20 care home staff members using a semi structure topic guide. The sampling strategy was a mix of convenience and purposeful sampling. Care home providers we collaborated with sent out emails to care home managers informing them about this study - those care homes that were interested in participating then got in contact with the researchers directly who subsequently discussed the purposeful sampling with respective care home managers so that they could recruit accordingly among their staff. Aim of the purposeful sampling was to ensure we get a range of perspectives - we interviewed staff representing roles such as bursar, kitchen assistant, operations manager, administration assistant, care leader, home manager, head of care, nurse, housekeeper, chef, care service manager, dementia carer, senior support worker, health care assistant.
