Coronavirus - Bubbles and tests

It’s been nearly eight months since the coronavirus whirlwind started, and it just doesn’t seem to be letting up. Looking back to where we were in March and the precautions we started to put into place, many of us thought the madness would have subsided by now.

Naively I thought extra-curricular activities would be back in full swing, parents would be back in the building dropping off and collecting, and that bubbles would be a thing of the past. How wrong was I?

Speaking to many providers and managers, it is clear that we are all still finding navigating the Government guidance troublesome, and many settings are balancing on a knife edge financially. So, what are we meant to be doing currently?

Bubbling

One of the issues that keeps cropping up when visiting settings and during my staff meetings is ‘bubbling’.

At first, each room in our setting had multiple bubbles and children were kept apart from each other. The sensible approach now that the 15 children maximum has been removed is to bubble a whole room as one. Schools have also started to manage this successfully and settings seem to have this sorted, but it does bring some headaches.

Each room and bubble is one separate entity and we must try as much as possible to not switch staff between bubbles. There are times when staff are sick or on holiday, which makes this exceptionally difficult, but if a staff member receives a positive test, the bubbles they have been working with will have to go into isolation, and so you may have multiple bubbles that have to self-isolate, which no doubt will have a financial implication. Therefore, if finances allow, it is advantageous to ask staff in each bubble to work longer.

We can no longer put children from several rooms together first thing in the morning for breakfast and then split them into their designated rooms. We have opted to have a member of staff from each room start at 7.30am and a member of staff finish from each room at 6pm. This is expensive but the safest option and our way of protecting each bubble of children from mixing with others.

At the forefront of my mind and that of many providers is the financial impact coronavirus is having on settings. In many cases, numbers have not bounced back to pre-Covid levels. This is for a variety of reasons. Some children have left for school, and families are still concerned about the infection rate.

Cash reserves have been well and truly dipped into, and the future is looking bleak for many. We have been working with many settings to help them balance their books (we have in some cases had to cut the budget for resources and in other settings we have had to sadly make staff redundant).

Staffing costs have risen substantially even in the most well-managed settings. This is because staff are working more hours to cover their bubbles and many are having to self-isolate either because they have symptoms or they have children who have been sent home to isolate. The worst-case scenario is a positive test coming back within the nursery, which brings a whole new level of complexity.

Test procedure

Over the past few weeks, positive tests in settings have risen and many settings have had to send bubbles home to self-isolate, or close their settings completely.

If a child or staff member receives a positive test result then the first action is to contact the Department for Education, who will advise you on the next step and the requirement to contact Public Health England. They will issue you further guidance and inform you what the next step is.

Everyone who has had close contact with the person who has tested positive, following the onset of the first coronavirus symptom, must self-isolate for 14 days regardless if they have had symptoms or not. The person with the positive test result must isolate for ten days.

Parents will need to be informed that their child has been in close contact with a person who has received a positive test, keeping in mind confidentiality (you must not share people’s medical information). Informing parents that there has been a case in your setting is enough to share. Ofsted must also be informed, and it is advised that this is also done very quickly on receiving the notification of a positive test.

The notification to Ofsted is required by completing the online form relating to Covid; they will often call the setting after the submission of the form to collect more information. In addition to Ofsted you must also contact your local authority to notify them.

Parents who have children who are self-isolating should not have their children tested for coronavirus unless they are displaying symptoms.

It is essential that you keep a chronology of what has happened: who you have contacted and a name of everyone you have spoken to at the different departments so that this can be referred back to when needed. Where possible, insist that information, guidance and instructions from the relevant authorities are sent to you via email so that you have a paper trail of what you were told to do and when.

Policy updates

While we are trapped in an ongoing pandemic, it is also important to remember to update your policies and procedures with changes that you may have made.

For example, you may want to add your cleaning regime and how you deep clean resources and rooms currently to your health and safety policy. You may want to add a section to your safeguarding policy about safeguarding families against coronavirus. This would cover the bubbles, and having a self-isolation room should a member of staff of child became ill in the setting.

Within your confidentiality policy, you may want to include that you will keep the identity of any person with a positive test confidential in order to respect and protect their identity. Although these are not mandatory, it is often helpful when staff and parents have information clearly written within the policy.