5 November 2020

Keeping you safe when visiting your home and community - 5 January 2021

Find out how our colleagues will keep both you and our teams safe when we visit your home and community.
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Our repairs service
Where we need to complete a repair, we will work with you to do this in a safe way.  Firstly, we may try to resolve your issue over the phone. If this is not possible then we will arrange to visit you. Depending on the type of repair we may have to wear proper protective equipment (PPE). This is to protect you and our teams.  

There are also several safety checks that we need to carry out in your home to keep you, and your family safe.  

The current government guidance is that these checks should continue. If you have a safety check booked, we will talk to you in advance about how we will complete this work. We will ask you to keep to the social distancing guidance and where possible move to a different room whilst we undertake this work.  

Some of our safety checks take place in the communal areas near your home so you may see our colleagues working on site. We are only working in areas where it is essential to do so.  

Contacting us to arrange a repair 
We currently are able to receive repair requests via our website forms, social media and through our Customer Service Centre.  We will be able to log your repair and provide you with an agreed appointment date for us to carry out the repair. As we are still working through our back log of repairs, we will offer you the first available dates that we have but these maybe in a few weeks’ time.   

You may also see our colleagues working to repair empty homes in your local area.  We are working with several local councils who have asked us to support them and provide homes to households who would otherwise be homeless. 

Your appointment 
When you book, we will ask if anyone in your home: 

• has Covid-19 symptoms 
• is vulnerable.

What to do if you or your family is unwell 
If you have an appointment arranged and you, or a member of your family, is unwell then you must let us know, so we can keep you and our teams safe. 

You should also let us know if anyone in your home has been unwell within the last 14 days. We have put in place special arrangements so that the repair can be completed safely. 

We will also call ahead on the day of your appointment to see if anything has changed.  Our teams are following the latest government guidance. 

When we visit your home, we will:

• wash or sanitise our hands before entering your home and at regular intervals during the appointment. 
• always keep at least two metres away from you.  
• we will ask everyone in your home to do the same, ideally by staying in a different room. 
• wear disposable or protective gloves as needed.  

Find out more about what to expect when we visit your home here.

If your repair requires two members of our team to visit, they will only come together for tasks that need two pairs of hands and will wear PPE, when they are not able to keep two meters apart.

We may ask you to open the windows and doors in your home to make sure there is adequate ventilation when we are completing the work. You can expect to see our teams wearing the following PPE in the below example scenarios. 

1) Where we need to carry out a repair or another essential service to someone in their home who is known to be infected with Covid-19, is displaying symptoms, is self-isolating or a vulnerability.

We will wear the following PPE: 

PPE Scenario 1

2) Works inside all other customer homes to complete repairs and safety checks, where there is no evidence of viral infection. 

We will wear the following PPE:

PPE Scenario 2

3) Works in external communal areas where social distancing is not (or is unlikely to) compromise social distancing rules. 

We will wear the following PPE:

PPE

4) Essential visits to customer homes, sheltered housing and extra care schemes where there is no evidence of viral infection.

We will wear the following PPE:

PPE Scenario 3