Goulburn Valley Health is spearheading a regional response group to ensure residential aged care facilities are prepared during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Department of Health and Human Services has designated GV Health as the lead agency for the Hume Region Cluster COVID-19 Residential Aged Care Response Group.
The group has led the development of a Hume Region Aged Care Plan that will support and co-ordinate the care escalation of COVID-19-positive aged care residents.
GV Health chief executive Matt Sharp said the group, which has been established for four weeks, would lead responses in both public and private facilities throughout the region.
“The challenge faced by some Victorian aged care facilities has demonstrated the need for decisive action to protect the most vulnerable in our community and the staff who care for them during COVID-19,” Mr Sharp said.
“This group has taken and will continue to take a collaborative approach to developing a plan to support the local aged care and health sectors through the pandemic.”
The group has undertaken site visits, both physical and virtual, to residential aged care facilities to undertake assessments which will provide an opportunity to review and consolidate COVID-19 response plans to ensure they meet the requirement set out by DHHS and are consistent with the recently developed Hume COVID-19 Cluster Plan.
The group has assessed identified gaps, risks and resourcing or training requirements related to the COVID-19 response, with aims to support improvement across the sector.
GV Health's community care and mental health executive director Joshua Freeman is the lead for the group and said in addition to taking a proactive approach, group and individual public hospitals and health services played a part in supporting aged care services when an outbreak occurred.
“This has been the case with the Shepparton Villages outbreak recently,” he said.
“A range of clinical support such as specialist residential in-reach teams, infection control nurses, educators, nursing staff and COVID-19 testing teams from GV Health were deployed once it was realised an outbreak had occurred.”
This support has continued and will only conclude once the DHHS declares the outbreak is over, according to Mr Freeman.
“The goal is to ensure our entire community is supported during an outbreak and this can be achieved if the public and private sectors pool their expertise and resources to work together,” he said.
“The group has received terrific support from all hospitals and health services in the Hume Region, with Northeast Health Wangaratta and Albury Wodonga Health playing a key co-ordination role in the central Hume and border north-east region with GV Health.
“We have demonstrated it can be done across health services working with not-for-profit and private aged care providers through the development of the (group).
“I am confident of a successful outcome, with open and willing collaboration between the health and aged care sectors.”
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