A care home in Whitley Bay is taking part in a study that will hopefully help with winter illness in the future. Air filters have been placed around the home and in a few rooms to collect data on air quality and to help improve it. We visited the home and spoke to the residents taking part.
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00:00 The EOTH and care homes across the region have now moved into the future as they are
00:05 now taking part in research to hopefully reduce respiratory infections including colds, flu
00:11 and COVID-19.
00:12 Thanks to Enrich and their partnership with the National Institute of Health and Care
00:17 Research, the care homes will have these high efficiency particulate air filters around
00:22 the homes.
00:23 It looks very much like a huge fan and one is placed in each communal area and 12 residents
00:29 in Whitley Bay have also opted to have one in their rooms.
00:33 If it's taking care of the air, which is what we need, I think it's very good.
00:45 I don't like the look of them when it came, I thought, oh isn't that an ugly thing?
00:51 But it's necessary, it's very necessary.
00:56 You know, so we have to put up with these things that we think, oh that's awful, but
01:04 no it's necessary.
01:06 If they come into an old people's home and people think you just sit around and go to
01:14 sleep, well I'm afraid I'm not one of them.
01:20 I'm too nosy.
01:22 So far the residents seem to have taken to the study well, with some saying they can
01:26 already feel a difference.
01:27 But why did the home want to get involved?
01:29 I think it's because it's important really, you know, it's beneficial to the people that
01:35 we look after and we're quite big at youth and getting involved in research in all aspects
01:42 really where we're not only involved with the air filter study but we will kind of take
01:49 on most things because it's important that we kind of have a voice as well.
01:54 This study is just a small part of the huge amount of research going on behind closed
01:59 doors.
02:00 This is the third year that the study from the University of Bristol has been running
02:04 and they have worked with many care homes across England to make sure they have a huge
02:08 amount of data to allow them to gather enough evidence to see whether these air filters
02:12 work.
02:13 Eothan have also gone a step further and they have actually developed a partnership with
02:20 Newcastle University and instead of researchers bringing the questions to them as ready made
02:26 studies Eothan are actually looking at developing their own questions so that it comes from
02:33 the challenges that they have in their everyday delivery of care.
02:39 So it's really important that they are supported in the right way.
02:43 So the Newcastle University partnership is a really positive thing for research because
02:53 at the end of the day we just want to provide the best care for our residents.
02:57 And by the looks of things the residents are enjoying their time with the air filters working
03:01 around them.
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