Our response to Sydney’s Northern Beaches cluster

Sydney’s Northern Beaches COVID-19 cluster continues to grow with 30 new cases announced by the NSW Premier on Sunday 20 December.

As a result, a number of restrictions have been announced for Sydney’s Northern Beaches and the Greater Sydney area. You can read all about these on the NSW Government website. They will be in place until midnight on Wednesday 23 December.

Here’s what these restrictions mean for our customers.

Sydney’s Northern Beaches:

Our Supported Independent Living (SIL) homes:

Our Supported Independent Living (SIL) homes on the Northern Beaches are operating at a red site rating. As part of this, no social visitors are allowed. Masks must also be worn by everyone in the home – both staff and customers – at all times.

Hubs and Flexible Support:

Our Belrose Hub will close until 11 January 2021. If you would like to discuss alternative in-home support please let us know.

Our Flexible Supports will continue to operate with COVID-safe practices in place.

Businesses:

Our Packaging Business is an essential business and will continue to operate with skeleton staff. Square metre and social distancing guidelines will be adhered to. They will close on Wednesday 23 December and re-open in January 2021.

Our Facility Services team based at Bantry Bay will be relocated to other areas of Sydney. Any staff member lives in the Northern Beaches, they will not be going to work.

Greater Sydney, plus the Central Coast, Newcastle and the Illawarra/Shoalhaven:

Our Supported Independent Living (SIL) homes:

• In the Greater Sydney area our homes are operating at an Amber site rating. Staff will wear masks at all times – both inside and outside the home.
• Central Coast and Newcastle homes have a green site rating. Staff will wear masks inside the home.
• In the Illawarra / Shoalhaven area our homes are operating at a green site rating. Staff will wear masks inside the home.
• 10 people are allowed to gather together. Social distancing and a 1 person per 4 square metre rule applies.
• Please contact staff prior to visiting.

For more information on the site ratings, please check out our traffic light protocols.

Hubs and Flexible Support:

These will continue. Staff will wear masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines (where possible) as well as the 1 person per 4 square metre rule for hubs.

Businesses:

Our Facility Services will continue to operate. Our Laundry in Newcastle and our various other businesses in these areas will also continue to operate. They will all follow their COVID-safe protocols.

The rest of NSW:

Based on Government advice, we have taken extra precautions for our SIL homes in Taree and Forster, NSW. If this impacts you, please speak to your local staff.

All other services across the state will continue to operate normally with COVID-safe protocols in place.

The concentration of COVID-19 cases is in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, however, we’ve seen how quickly things can change.

We’ll continue to use our COVID-19 protocols for each of our sites. For the safety of our customers and our staff, we ask that you do not visit any of our sites if you have even the slightest symptoms or if you have been to any of the identified places of infection risk, listed on the NSW Government’s website.

If you are visiting a home, temperature checking will continue, and we ask that you diligently complete the sign in and sign out forms. We also ask that you consider gathering outdoors where possible.

If you have any questions, please speak to your local staff.

We thank you for your ongoing support and assistance.

Laz Cotsios
Chief Operating Officer, Aruma