We understand many of you will have growing concerns about coronavirus. The safety of our customers, staff and contractors remains our number one priority. We wanted to let you know how we are reducing risk during the current coronavirus threat and what you can do to help us.
Firstly we are monitoring the situation closely and you can read the Government’s latest advice on their website. We would encourage everyone to do this.
We are focussing on minimising risk whilst delivering services to our customers, many of whom are elderly and vulnerable. We are taking a number of preventative steps to keep you and others safe from the virus. This means that you will see some changes in the way we work.
All of our teams are following the current Government guidelines. This means that if any staff members are unwell for whatever reason we have asked them to remain at home.
We are still providing our full range of services it’s just that we will be delivering some of them in slightly different ways.
If you live in one of our support, older persons or extra care schemes you may see less staff out and about. This is because we have asked any staff who might occasionally drop in but do not work directly on these schemes to work from other locations. This is to reduce the risk to you. Your local team will remain working on your scheme and we have full cover arrangements in place.
We love to meet with people to talk things through however depending on the nature of our planned visit we may offer you a telephone, facetime or skype appointment as an alternative.
If we are due to visit your home to meet with you or carry out a repair, we would ask you to let us know in advance if you feel unwell. We will happily rearrange your appointment for a day when you are feeling better.
When we arrive we will first check with you that you are not experiencing any cold or flu-like symptoms.
Our team members will wash their hands before entering.
We won’t be shaking hands but we will smile.
Whilst in your home, we may ask you if you are happy to go into another room whilst we complete the work.
We will wipe down any surfaces we have worked on and wash our hands again as we leave.
We understand that you may prefer to rearrange your appointment with us to a later date. If our appointment is to carry out a safety check or essential repairs we will need to work with you to find a way that we can continue with the booked appointment and keep you safe. If you have a non-urgent repair booked or a new window, kitchen or bathroom installation then we are happy to rearrange this for a later date if you contact us.
Finally we always encourage our customers to contact us if they have individual difficulties and are impacted by the current situation. If you have any questions you can get in touch with your Housing Officer.
We work with lots of older and vulnerable customers. By working together at this difficult time we can help to keep everyone safe.
Paul Crawford
Chief Executive