COVID-19 Update 21Health and Safety Risk Assessments, Personal Plans and PPEIntroduction In this update I wanted to ensure that staff are aware of the Trust’s actions to ensure a safe and planned return to our workspaces. This is taking detailed planning and coordination and will take some time, but we wish to progress this at pace during the month of July. We will therefore be doing several things during July which I will outline below. Firstly, we will be focusing on engaging with individual clinical teams to plan how each team will work in the future. We had a huge amount of feedback in June when we asked staff what was working well with current arrangements, what staff wanted to keep doing and what staff didn’t feel was working quite as well. For example, we know that the more extensive use of digital technology has had significant positive feedback from staff and service users. However, we also know that some clinicians have fed back that insome circumstances this isn’t appropriate – e.g. where face to face assessments are essential. All of this feedback, directly from staff, will form the starting point of how we move forward together. We have now distilled this information down to team level and we will be sharing this information back with you and we will use it to inform plans for how services and individual members of staff can work safely in the future. In terms of individual members of staff, during the month of July we will be asking everyone who’s working pattern has changed to complete a ‘Personal Plan’ with their service manager or team leader. This will take into account the arrangements for the team they work in, but will also focus on the needs of individual staff. Some staff, for example, may continue to work remotely for a portion of their week in the long term, whilst others may return to a safer workplace full time. This will all depend on the specific team, service user needs and importantly the individual situation for each member of staff. We will also be announcing measures to provide staff with more suitable home working equipment that meets health and safety requirements – please watch out for further information on this. Finally, all of the above is going to feed into an extensive piece of work to review the health and safety arrangements in each of our sites. Our Estates, Facilities and Health and Safety teams are working as quickly as possible to catalogue the safety measures required and implement these. Due to the amount of work involved (we have over 35 sites!), this will take a number of months and we are prioritising sites based on discussions with the teams. This means some staff may return to work sooner than others. I understand that staff may want things to move faster, but our priority has and always will be the safety of our staff and service users. The first stage is getting all the ‘Personal Plans’ completed and we need to do this during July. Today I will cover:
Jonathan O'Brien - Director of Operations and Deputy Chief Executive Workplace COVID-19 Health & Safety Risk Assessments and Estates Work A checklist and risk assessments called “Working Safely During COVID-19” has been developed with the aim of supporting teams to assess, analysis and plan for an appropriate and safe return to the workplace. I wanted to share this directly with staff in full and therefore the document can be downloaded by clicking here. The assessment is being disseminated to service managers and team leaders to complete before being reviewed by a Recovery/Social Distancing Task and Finish group. This group will support teams to ensure actions and control measures are implemented so that each workplace is safe. During July, sites and services will be assessed and prioritised and those identified as the highest priority will see work commence on safety measures by our estates teams to allow staff to return safely to the new way of working for their team. Workforce implications and Personal Plans During the month of July we will be asking all individuals working in teams where practices have changed to complete an individual “Personal Plan” with their service manager or team leader. The template can be found by clicking here. We have purposely kept this as simple and open as possible. This will mostly be relevant to staff in the community and corporate services, where remote working has increased during the height of lockdown. The aim is for this to underpin team level plans that work for the individual andteam and importantly continues to deliver care for our service users to a high standard. In turn, team level plans will inform the Health & Safety and Estates work that need to be completed at team bases, in order to make them safer working environments. Managers should also utilise this plan to ensure that the ergonomics of remote working (e.g. display screen equipment, desks, chairs etc.) are in line with health and safety requirement, if remote working is something that an individual will continue to do in the longer term. We recognise that some people face challenges whilst working from home and we will now be offering a contribution of £60 towards and new desk and £50 towards a new chair. The process for accessing this funding will be disseminated to line managers. If any staff need specialist equipment, this can be supplied through the Trust. Please discuss further with your line manager. It is essential that each individual has their personal plan discussion with their team leader or service manager in the month of July, to ensure the longer term plans for team level working and our estates work can be progressed at pace. This will allow us to proceed with making workplaces safe and allow staff back to workplaces as soon as possible. PPE Guidance Reminder The existing PPE guidance we have previously issued, which you can still access by clicking here still applies to clinical services including in all community teams. Please take this opportunity to re-familiarise yourself with this guidance and how it relates to your practice in the community and the hospital. This covers community teams as well as inpatient sites. In addition to this, the additional requirements for inpatient sites include:
|