Keeping You Safe During The Pandemic

A thorough screening process is carried out before you attend Clouds House which will provide us with the information required to put all necessary safety measures in place. We will consider the area you are travelling from e.g. the tier you are in, whether there has been a new variant of the virus in your area and so on. We will also be asking you to complete an assessment questionnaire over the telephone.

We will ask you to take a Covid test 72 hours before you are admitted, which will assist us in reducing any risk to our staff or other members of our community when you come into Clouds.

We will also be asking you for a clear and safe plan just in case you leave treatment prematurely; this affords you the safety you will need in terms of travelling home without risk.

When you have arrived at Clouds House you will be screened in the reception area. We will make sure that your temperature is as it should be (lower than 37.8°c) and will ask you to complete a Lateral Flow Test. If this test is negative, you will then be invited into the house to begin the medical admission process. If your temperature is raised or your test returns a positive result you will be asked to return home, get a PCR test and follow the government guidance.

Now that you have been admitted, you will be invited to take a shower and change your clothes before entering the medical centre for your medical admission. You will notice that all our staff will be wearing appropriate PPE e.g. masks, gloves and aprons.

We will then provide you with a PCR (swab) test. You will receive further PCR tests on days five, nine, fifteen and weekly thereafter. This allows us to continually monitor for any potential outbreaks and ensure that both you and the rest of the Clouds House community is provided with the safest possible care. In doing so we allow you to focus on the important work of gaining a robust and meaningful foundation for your recovery. Until we receive a negative result from your first PCR test you will have reduced contact with the rest of the community. Until your second negative PCR test (at day 5 of your stay) we will provide you with a room to yourself. After this we will move you to a room which you will share with others so that you can benefit from the experience and recovery of other more senior peers.

During the medical admission process, we will collaborate with you to create a nursing care plan which further outlines all of our infection control procedures and we will check with you that you understand all of the measures we are taking. We will talk you through our guidelines on hand washing, social distancing (2 meters apart) and wearing masks. We ask you to have a mask upon your person at all times, so that if you come within 2 meters of another member of the community, you can put your mask on quickly.

Throughout the whole of your treatment experience we will continue check your temperature and SATS (oxygen saturation) daily. We do this to check that you do not have Covid.

We have configured the layout of Clouds House to ensure optimum protection from a Covid outbreak and to reduce risk of spreading the virus should an outbreak occur. To do this we have positioned all tables to be 2 meters apart and have reduced the number of chairs around tables. We use the largest rooms within the house for all group therapeutic activities and ventilate all rooms. We also provide cleaning wipes for all high touch areas e.g. the communal telephones.

We have minimised trips off-site and have instead, enriched our residential treatment programme to provide as much therapeutic activity on-site as we are able.

We know that family engagement and contact is of paramount importance to those working at recovery and although we have had to minimise the number of visitors to Clouds House, we have also moved all contact from families, care teams, referrers and anyone else necessary, to online platforms such as ZOOM, Microsoft Teams and Skype. This means that we can still arrange family contact, facilitated family meetings, care reviews and any other important interventions necessary to both your recovery and the healing of those around you affected by addiction.

As is sometimes the case, there may be times when you might need to attend hospital. If this occurs we have a dedicated room, designed to allow you to isolate for the recommended 48 hours and we will provide you with daily Lateral Flow tests for 7 days which afford us close monitoring of your wellbeing.

If someone develops a new continuous cough, a temperature above 37.8°c or a loss of taste or smell OR has a positive test result they will be asked to remain in a single occupancy room. We will then arrange for the member of the community who has symptoms or has tested positive to be returned home safely according to their pre-approved contingency plan. This will be explored with you by the admissions team before you are admitted. All of those who have been in contact with that person will then be tested and plans made following the test results.

Our staff team are a precious resource and as such we take great care to protect them. All members of our staff team have access to Lateral Flow Tests at home and are advised to take twice weekly tests. Staff are all given PCR tests twice per week. We have also vaccinated all available staff and ask that they comply with all Public Health England and NHS guidance regarding attendance at work during the Covid-19 pandemic. All staff check their own temperature daily and are always asked to wear masks.

We have also set up new working practices to make certain that should an outbreak occur, there is sufficient staff to cover all the clinical and therapeutic services available. This will mean that, at times, some of the therapeutic work that you do with your focal counsellor, will be done over a platform such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams. However, there is always a highly skilled counselling team on site to work with you throughout the whole of your treatment experience.