Continuity Planning?
Thinking back to Monday the 16thth March 2020 I remember getting up early. I was scheduled to visit one of our homes in Tewkesbury. I was just about to leave the house when an email came in from the senior Director telling us all to ‘Hold’ all visits and prepare for the conference call that morning. Yes, this is the start of the ‘Lock Down’. With hindsight, how prepared were we for what came next?
Our management team has conducted various strategic planning exercises. On the 16thth In March, a “strategic executive team” was formed and planning and response procedures were developed – this is still a live document.
Office-based staff were then asked to work from home. Within days we received reports that a staff member based at home had hit his head on a shelf. Maybe time for a DSE assessment perhaps? ‘We can see it’s time for action’
So how do we respond?
One of the first H&S challenges we encountered was the number of contractors who might visit our home. All non-essential visits have been discontinued. The LOLER inspection presented us with a few more challenges. LOLER engineers usually have access to all areas throughout our homes. We thought this should be classed as an essential visit and decided that the best way forward was to minimize the “movement” engineers make in each house. We decided to allocate an area/lounge for the engineers to work on and all the equipment would be brought over to them, inspected and put back in place. This will maintain social distancing measures and minimize the risk of cross-contamination issues within the home.
In terms of work at Home, the Health and Safety team has developed a 2 page self assessment which now incorporates DSE, single work and fire safety. Easier to use in its current form and much more streamlined.
Laundry – we have reviewed our procedures and created Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to help address issues with contaminated items
Cleaning – Supply issues meant we had to work fast to get a different cleaner and do a new COSHH risk assessment now in place.
In terms of cleaning rooms with confirmed or suspected Covid -19. Standard operating procedures are also produced.
Maintaining fire safety is a critical issue for all service providers today. We have a number of houses with continuous improvement plans identified in our Fire Risk Assessment. To help minimize site visits to homes by contractors, the team conducts a review of all immediate/ongoing fire risk assessment actions. Each action is assigned a RAG rating (red, yellow or green). This helps us identify any work that is classified as critical (safety critical). Contractors will now only be allowed to attend sites to complete repair work where the work is deemed critical to Safety.
RIDDOR reporting on Covid-19 can now be reported as a disease. It is effective from 5th April. Our challenge: If a staff member does have Covid-19, how do we know it was the result of exposure at work? Since then, we have developed a screening questionnaire, to help identify when a report is really needed
Fire & Rescue Services started contacting us both through the H&S Team and locally directly to our homes. Different levels of concern were raised by different Fire & Rescue Services regarding their planned response to 999 calls. They are aware of the risks associated with Covid 19. The fire service wants to ensure the safety of its crew. They want to know the number of positive cases of Covid-19 as well as suspected cases before they can respond. We have agreed on work protocol in such events keeping safe for all.
Finally, we are opening a number of new homes which we will inspect and support with registration/opening. We agree that these checks can be carried out remotely with virtual support.
The last few weeks have been really challenging. Time is unprecedented. We’ve been faced with a number of questions to which we don’t immediately have answers. Sometimes we are asked to make the impossible possible. What’s important then is that we are determined to find a solution, which makes sense and ensures some form of business continuity.
Now looking ahead, I’m sure there will be many new challenges and also new questions. We will continue to offer support and advice as and when needed as we have always done before and we will try and be more “solution focused” along the way
There seem to be answers to most questions, but only if you commit to finding them.
Why do we do this work I hear you ask? Because of security – save lives and never more important.
Andy Hollingshead (H&S Manager), Lisa Harris (H&S Manager) and Paul Mason (H&S Director).
