Staff from social care teams in Devon are being redeployed from non-critical to essential frontline services in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

Devon County Council’s latest measures are to ensure that vulnerable people, young or old, are able to continue accessing the services they need.

People who receive regular visits from care workers are being told that their care providers are working hard to continue scheduled visits.

The council is working closely with care providers of residential and home care, to ensure that services can continue with as little disruption as possible.

It’s also working with Devon Carers to make sure that unpaid carers, many of whom are aged 70 and over, are receiving the support they need.

Councillor Andrew Leadbetter, DCC’s cabinet member for adult health and social care, said: “These are unprecedented times and care agencies are doing everything they can to make their scheduled appointments.

“We’re putting all of our energy into supporting care providers in Devon.

“There is a lot of work being done at the moment around the availability of personal protective equipment for care workers, which we’re in the process of securing.

“We’re monitoring where care providers’ care teams are stretched, due to self-isolating, in order to direct more resources to them, and we’re looking within our own teams to identify staff in less critical services who can be temporarily diverted to support the most important front line services.”

Children’s social work teams are also re-prioritising in order to strengthen key front-line services supporting vulnerable children and young people.

Staff are redeploying between teams to increase capacity to support all vulnerable children.

All across the county, town and parish councils and community groups are setting up volunteer schemes to support those in need.

DCC is working alongside district, city and borough councils to support all their work and that of other community groups, setting up volunteer schemes to ensure vulnerable people receive essential support.

The county council is also launching a Covid-19 grant scheme to help organisations working with community groups impacted by coronavirus.

And it has launched a Devon Communities Together Covid-19 helpline to support parish and town councils’ local response and resilience to the virus.