Coronavirus: Important message from Worthing-based charity Guild Care

She said: “Thank you for your ongoing support of Guild Care at this very difficult and unprecedented time. I personally wanted to reassure you that we are doing all we can to continue to support our residents, service users, staff and volunteers at this concerning time for us all.

“Our priority will always be the 1,000-plus residents, service users and those in the local community who are most vulnerable and who now, more than ever, need our continued support.

“As you can imagine, we are monitoring the situation daily and are in regular contact with Public Health England, National Care Forum, West Sussex County Council and the NHS, and are doing all we can to maintain and support as many of our service users and the wider community as we are able.

“To date, the advice we have taken means that our older people’s day services are all suspended and our centres for people living with dementia and children and adults with learning disabilities have closed. However, our most vulnerable service users are still being cared for in our three nursing homes, sheltered accommodation, home care and outreach services.

“Our care homes, which are home to some of the most vulnerable in our community, are a priority and we have taken advice and closed these to all non-essential visitors. Systems are being put in place to ensure residents can maintain as much contact with their families as possible.

“Our 11 charity shops are all closed, as it our head office at Methold House, with only a skeleton staff working to keep our services operating.

“We are now training staff to deploy them across our other services, as and when required, to ensure we can continue to deliver our key work.

“Unfortunately, we have had to cancel a significant number of our fundraising events between now and June. We will be contacting participants and announcing updates as soon as we have them and will review the situation on a monthly basis.

“In these difficult times, it is our aim to keep any disruption to an absolute minimum and maintain as many services as possible whilst also, following the closure of our charity shops, continuing to raise the vital funds we need now more than ever to continue to support the most vulnerable in our community.

“Finally, I would like to take this opportunity again to thank the people of Worthing for your support – past, present and future. Your support of Guild Care is always very much appreciated.

“Take care, stay safe and thank you for your support and understanding.”