Elizabeth Lawerance, Care Home Manager:

St Anthony’s Care Home provides care for older people with mental health conditions. Everyone in our care home is dedicated to protecting residents and we are very proud that together we have successfully achieved 100% vaccination coverage of staff and residents.

Care home residents, along with their care staff and care providers have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Facing large-scale outbreaks of COVID-19 we were determined to take the necessary precautions from day one and do everything we can to protect our wonderful staff and residents.

We were well informed and clearly understood that our residents were, and continue to be, the most vulnerable to COVID-19 and realised getting vaccinated was essential to safeguard everyone at St Anthony’s.

To encourage the rest of my team, as a care home manger, I took the vaccine first.

We took all the necessary steps to squash any myths, such as holding staff meetings and webinars, to ensure that all our staff were well-prepared and didn’t have any concerns about getting vaccinated.

Vaccine confidence amongst the team has been heightened, through sharing accurate information and discussions. During the tough times, we have received full support and resources from weekly South West London (SWL) meetings and webinars which helped us to communicate with the staff.  We appreciate all the help from Merton Council Public Health and Adult Social Care, South West London Clinical Commissioning Group, Primary Care and South West London Infection Control