Coronavirus: temporary changes to our Safe Haven services

Taking into consideration the seriousness of the Coronavirus situation and wanting to keep the right balance between being cautious and continuing to support people in mental health crisis, we’ve had discussions with our Community Connection partners, Surrey and Border Partnership (SABP) senior staff as well as Commissioners from Surrey County Council and Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and have decided to implement some temporary changes to our Safe Haven services in Epsom, Aldershot, Guildford, Redhill and Woking: : 

• Our Safe Haven services will stay open from 6pm until 11pm every evening but they will focus on supporting people who are experiencing a mental or emotional health crisis only.
• Our “maintaining wellbeing hour” from 6pm to 7pm will now be reserved for people experiencing a crisis. This is a temporary measure to enable us to support the management of the escalating COVID 19 outbreak.
• If you are not in crisis but still require mental health support, we have listed all the other helplines you can contact in the meantime.

For those in crisis visiting our Safe Haven services, we’d like to remind them to follow the latest hygiene guidelines listed below:

Handwashing

We ask that anyone visiting any of our services washes their hands with soap and water for 20 seconds and dries them thoroughly using our facilities as soon as they enter the premises – even before signing in. This applies to everyone, regardless of having symptoms or not.

Anyone not complying with this procedure might be asked to leave the building immediately. This procedure is in place to prevent spreading the virus and keeping everyone safe.

Self-isolation

On top of this, we will ask you to follow the latest guidance regarding people who have symptoms:

• Please do not attend any of our services if you have a temperature of 37.8 or above.
• Please do not attend any of our services if you have a persistent cough or develop a new cough.
• If you do, please remain at home for seven days.

Similarly, if you are over 65 with certain long-term health conditions such as diabetes, cancer and chronic lung disease, the advice is to stay at home too.

However if you are in crisis and housebound, it is still important that you ask for support. We have listed all the mental health helplines you can call if you can’t visit our services.

Looking after your mental health

If you are feeling anxious about the coronavirus outbreak and are unsure of what to do to look after yourself, we recommend reading the Mental Health Foundation guidance.

We know these procedures are very strict and inconvenient but we ask for your utmost co-operation in these unusual times, so we keep the most vulnerable people in our society safe.

All our other services, courses, activities and groups will stay open and continue to run until further notice. But as the situation is rapidly developing, we invite you to check our website, Facebook and Twitter pages regularly to keep abreast of any changes.

For the latest guidance on the spread of the virus and what to do to protect yourself and others, please visit the government’s website.

We thank you for your understanding and co-operation.

The Mary Frances Trust Team

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