Increased pressures on social care due to coronavirus

Bridgend County Borough Council is seeing continued pressure on the social care sector due to the rising number of coronavirus cases.

While the local authority has been able to reinstate some of the services, such as respite care, which were scaled back before Christmas, other services in the sector have been affected.

Multi-agency partners have been working with a number of care homes due to significant numbers of residents and staff becoming unwell with coronavirus, helping to provide vital support.

The social care sector is facing some extremely serious issues due to the increasing number of coronavirus cases.

Within the local authority, there are pressures in services with a number of staff being unavailable either because of positive coronavirus cases or having to self-isolate. Care packages are being prioritised in domiciliary care with ongoing discussions with families to ensure care needs are being met as we work to ensure all services are provided safely. We are also very aware that there are many patients who are in the Princess of Wales Hospital that are very unwell, with many expected to require care and support from social services to support and enable their discharge.

This is a deeply worrying time – now more than ever, people need to take the pandemic seriously and act to protect their friends, family, neighbours and themselves. Please continue to keep to the latest rules, keep washing your hands, wear face coverings and ensure you are social distancing where necessary to stop the virus spreading further.

The council’s cabinet member for social services Nicole Burnett

As of January 3, a total of 10,079 cumulative coronavirus cases had been recorded by Public Health Wales since the start of the pandemic. The county borough has a population of about 147,000.

More than 6,000 of those cases have been confirmed since the beginning of December with a new, highly-infectious strain of Covid-19 circulating.

Bridgend county borough also has the highest positivity rate in Wales, with 36.5% of tests carried out in the seven days from Christmas Eve returning as positive. This was 1,334 cases from 3,659 tests. The positivity rate for the whole of Wales during the same period was 25.6%.