Following the lockdown of residential aged care facilities across South Brisbane and in the Moreton Bay region last week, Health Consumers Queensland and a consortium of six NGOs (including COTA Queensland, Queenslanders with Disability Network, ADA Australia, Palliative Care Queensland and CarersQLD) co-designed a single checklist and provided a series of resources to enable residential care facilities to communicate effectively with residents and families during an outbreak.
As part of this work, Jo Smethurst facilitated a training session to help facility managers understand the importance of communicating well when/if COVID-19 impacts their facility, and develop a comprehensive communications plan to enable them to be responsive to the individual needs of residents and families. This training session was part of a week-long training series led by the Office of the Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer in Queensland Health.