Courtney Thorne – COVID-19 Update

As the UK enters the latest phase of COVID-19 Lockdown, we at Courtney Thorne want to reassure you that we are still operating and that we are taking all necessary precautions to protect you and those in your care, as well as our own staff.

A well maintained and fully operational Nurse Call system is crucial to the safe operation of all residential care homes and hospital wards, and is an essential element in providing the best and most appropriate care to vulnerable residents and patients. Sales, Service and Installation activities conducted by colleagues at Courtney Thorne are ready and able to be performed as required, and will continue to do so responsibly and until we are notified otherwise by the UK Gov.

Therefore, as the situation with COVID-19 across the UK changes and businesses in the health and care sectors re-evaluate their hygiene and visitor rules, we at Courtney Thorne want to reassure you that we are taking all necessary measures to mitigate the likelihood of exacerbating the situation with our office and field based staff, especially when there is a need to visit our customer’s premises. These measures include:-

• Sales appointments including live demonstrations of our nurse call solutions can be offered using video conferencing (Zoom, Google Meet, Skype etc).
• Sales appointments at customer’s premises are available but subject to the confirmation that there are no Covid cases on site and any changes in the restrictions on travel.
• Field Engineers carrying out new installations, additions to existing systems, repairs and servicing activities have been measuring and submitting their body temperatures on a daily basis since March 2020, and will continue to do so. This has provided an auditable record of their COVID-19 health status and is designed to catch symptoms early.
• Field Engineers always carry full PPE in their vans, this includes face masks, gloves, overalls and hand sanitiser.
• Due to the multi-site visiting nature of a field engineers’ role, Courtney Thorne operates the following 3-stage ‘COVID-19 protection’ process to prevent them coming into contact with the virus whilst on a customer’s site.
  • Stage 1 – At the initial stage of booking a site visit, we will call you to determine if you have any COVID-19 patients/residents on site and, if so, if they are isolated.
  • Stage 2 – Before the site visit takes place, we will email you a questionnaire requesting more information on your COVID-19 situation and will require a confirmation signature from an authorised person.
  • Stage 3 – If stages 1 and 2 have been deemed acceptable, we will dispatch an engineer.  They will then determine the precautionary measures and PPE required through a conversation with an authorised person when they arrive.

Due to the above precautions, and despite our staff visiting care homes and hospitals on a daily basis since March 2020, not one of them has developed any COVID-19 symptoms at any time.

Should you experience a problem with your Courtney Thorne Nurse Call system, contact our Technical Help desk by emailing [email protected] , clearly describing the problem and provide a contact name and telephone number. We will call you back and in 95% of cases will be able to fix issues over the telephone without needing to visit the site.

A number of our customers who have a Courtney Thorne Service Contract also benefit from our CT-Cloud service which incorporates a remote connection into their Courtney Thorne server, this enables our support engineers to check the system logs and programming remotely. The CT-Cloud service also provides nurse call system alarm data logs which means that information is available for managers and stakeholders without having to visit the home, for more information about the CT-Cloud service please call us on 01202 573 300 or email us at [email protected]

In the event that an engineer is required to visit the site, written confirmation will be required from you stating that there are no residents/patients or staff showing symptoms of COVID-19. Only upon receipt of this will our engineer enter a customer’s premises. Where we have previously booked a service visit we will call you the day before in order to make sure that our engineer will be granted access to your site, similarly where new systems are being installed a courtesy call will be made the day before.

Should you have any queries or concerns about your Nurse Call system please do not hesitate to get in touch.

The Courtney Thorne Team

Written by

Barry Vacher

Date

07.01.21