COVID 19 HS Policy

Policy Statement

The implications of COVID-19 on businesses and their employees have been far-reaching and are still evolving. Although restrictions have now been eased and the government have announced their plans to continue to move forward further towards normality, we continue as a business to be faced with the challenge of keeping our employees safe and secure at work whilst continuing to provide a world class service to our clients, The latest Government announcements & guidelines are available to all UK employees and employers to assist them in keeping safe and operating your business as safely as possible. The health, safety, and wellbeing of our operatives remains our priority, we advise that all operatives should continue to wear facial coverings and shields as an additional measure in keeping you, our customers, and the rest of your team safe at work.

Basic protective measures to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus remain broadly unchanged, whilst still being in line with the ‘wash your hands, cover your face and make space’ guidance:

wash hands – keep washing your hands regularly
cover face – continue to wear a face covering over your nose and mouth in enclosed spaces
make space – stay at least a metre away from people (2 metres apart where possible)
If you are feeling unwell, get a PCR test, you can order these to your address or book a drive through test site who will support you.
Do not leave home if you or anyone in your household has symptoms, you must self isolate until you receive test results back from your PCR test.

Informing head office also helps Fidelis Contract Services to monitor the site you are based on more carefully protecting our customers and your work colleagues to the best of our ability.

The following processes still apply to our Management team, Operatives, serviced sites, and head office premises:

In the event of a confirmed and suspected case at one of our customer sites.

Fidelis Contract Services are happy to support with advice and recommendations on the latest information issued by local authorities as below.

Actions to take if an employee or visitor with suspected COVID-19 has recently been in your workplace

For contacts of a suspected case in the workplace, no restrictions or special control measures are required. There is no need to close the workplace or send other staff home at this point. Most possible cases turn out to be negative. Therefore, until the outcome of test results is known there is no action that the workplace needs to take.

What to do if a member of staff, visitor or the public with confirmed COVID-19 has recently been in your workplace

Closure of the workplace is not recommended.

We will work together with the management team of the office or workplace to implement and utilise a track and trace system to identify people who have been in contact with them and advise on any actions or precautions that should be taken.

Risk Assessments

A risk assessment of each setting should be undertaken by the Health Protection Team with the lead responsible person. Advice on the management of staff and members of the public will be based on this assessment.

The Health Protection Team will also be in contact with the case directly to advise on isolation and identifying other contacts and will be in touch with any contacts of the case to provide them with appropriate advice.

Advice on cleaning of communal areas such as offices or toilets will be given by the Health Protection Team. Fidelis Contract Services do offer additional deep cleaning & sanitisation services as a measure to reduce the risk of further infection. For additional support and preventative cleaning, please contact your allocated Contracts Manager or call our Head Office on 0121 289 3258.

Five Steps for Safe Working Together

The Government have issued guidance on managing the risk of COVID-19 and opening your business safely during COVID-19. these are:

COVID-19 risk assessments should be created and used to mitigate risk
Cleaning, handwashing and hygiene procedures
Flexible and smart working
Taking reasonable steps to maintain a 2m social distance in the workplace
Face coverings where appropriate – where 2m distance cannot be adhered to
Track and trace

In real terms, the ‘Fidelis Steps’ are outlined as;

Risk assessments

We have conducted a bespoke COVID-19 risk assessment within all of our customer sectors. These are slightly different from a usual risk assessment in that they will be performed in consultation with our operatives and customers to ensure that they are confident in returning to work. We will be sharing the results, asking for suggestions, giving information on timeframe and communicating our changes to provide the safest working environment possible.

Working from home and workspace/environment

It is crucial that an employee’s workspace and environment is adequately designed to maintain a two-metre distance between people, potentially with staggered shift times, one-way walkthroughs and more entrances and exits to avoid unnecessary contact. We have implemented a new process of demarcated areas within our office to ensure the social distancing recommendations.

Flexible and smart ways of working are important for both employer and employee. A balanced approach to new ways of working has been adopted. Where the two-metre rule cannot be followed, we will be considering creating workplace shift patterns or fixed teams, hence minimising the number of people in contact with one another, or ensuring colleagues are facing away from each other.

Cleaning and hygiene procedures

Before re-opening

A precautionary sanitisation clean should take place, sanitising all high-risk touch points and surfaces throughout the building using a viricidal disinfectant solution, alongside the Fidelis approved cleaning process.

Decontamination clean – to deep clean and sanitise all surfaces, telephones, keyboards, touch points, toilets, washrooms, showers, where a confirmed case of Covid-19 has occurred in the workplace.

Disinfectant fogging should only be utilised following a decontamination clean as a secondary precaution (all areas would need sealing off and then closed for a minimum of 6hrs during this process). This process is not necessary should a thorough sanitisation clean have been carried out.

Keeping the workplace clean and maintained – Government Recommendations:

Deep cleaning going forward

Deep cleans can be used to demonstrate good housekeeping and act as an additional measure for maintaining standards and safety, this would be a good measure to implement quarterly and we will provide a specification, which will be agreed.

Additional housekeeping

It is advised to add in extra cleaning processes throughout the premises at a time that is specific and most effective to manage the risk. Our housekeeping is recommended to be implemented by midday to sanitise all high-risk areas such as touch points in reception/entrance areas, despatch zones, canteen and break areas, toilets and common areas prior and during use.

Hygiene – handwashing, sanitation facilities and toilets

It is recommended to:

use signs and posters to build awareness of good handwashing technique, the need to increase handwashing frequency, avoid touching your face and the need to cough or sneeze into a tissue which is binned safely, or into your arm if a tissue is not available
Provide regular reminders and signage to maintain hygiene standards
Provide hand sanitiser in multiple locations in addition to washrooms
Set clear use and cleaning guidance for toilets to ensure they are kept clean and social distancing is achieved as much as possible
Enhance cleaning frequencies for busy areas
Take special care where cleaning of portable toilets is required
Provide more waste facilities and more frequent rubbish collection
Provide paper towels as an alternative to hand dryers in handwashing facilities, where possible

Changing rooms and showers

Where shower and changing facilities are required, setting clear use and cleaning guidance for showers, lockers and changing rooms to ensure they are kept clean and clear of personal items and that social distancing is achieved as much as possible
Introducing enhanced cleaning and housekeeping of all facilities regularly during the day and at the end of the day is highly recommended.

Handling goods, merchandise and other materials, and onsite vehicles

Cleaning procedures should be enhanced or introduced for the parts of shared equipment that is touched after each use. For instance, equipment, tools and vehicles, such as pallet trucks and forklift trucks, to reduce the risk of transmission
It is advised to encourage increased handwashing and introduce more handwashing facilities for workers handling goods and merchandise or providing hand sanitiser, where handwashing is not practical
Introduce more regular cleaning of vehicles that workers may take home
Introduce a regular cleaning process of reusable delivery boxes.

Managing the transmission risk

All our sites have been issued with a newly available chemical in the fight against the virus. Our anti-viricidal chemical called UltraAX, is effective in killing Coronavirus COVID 19.

Going-forward, our contract management team will ensure that all sites continue to be provided with this product to mitigate all risk of infection. Our cross contamination and infection control policy will be updated to include this higher-level of practice

Please see an extract below from the UltraAX data sheet which is issued to all sites within the site management file.

PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)

PPE protects the user against health or safety risks at work and gives added protection to those working and being in areas around us. It will, where required, include items such as safety helmets and shields, gloves, eye protection, high-visibility clothing, safety footwear and safety harnesses. It also includes respiratory protective equipment, such as face masks and face shields.

As per Government guidance, where a 2m distance cannot be adhered to, or where any sectors that have been advised that the wearing face coverings are mandatory, we will provide our employees with the relevant face coverings.

Where appropriate, our operatives have been provided with the correct PPE (which may vary from site to site) in line with our safe systems of working, customer requirements and our policies. We encourage staff to order sufficient stocks of general PPE and we will communicate and explain the importance of wearing and changing PPE in accordance with our cross contamination and infection control policies.

Where we are already using PPE in our work activity to protect against non-COVID-19 risks, we will continue to do so and enhance this where required.

To reiterate, the best preventative measure to manage COVID-19 risk in the workplace is still to ‘Stay Alert, Control the Virus, Save Lives’.

Training

Our senior management and contracts team have completed and now refreshed the Cache L2 Certificate in The Prevention & Control of Infection in Healthcare Settings delivered by Environmental Excellence Training & Development Ltd.

The L2 Certification covers the principles and steps of the decontamination process and correct, safe use of personal protective equipment. Training will be delivered by our management teams via toolbox talk sessions with all operatives across all areas of the business to cascade knowledge, tips and current guidelines which can help with the aid of preventative measures in the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

The skills and principles of our training around the prevention and control of infection are and always have been cascaded down and trained to our on-site colleagues by Contracts Managers delivering induction training, toolbox talks and practical learning on site.

Our Head Office staff are also undertaking the SCIE’s Infection control: e-learning course to further their knowledge and skills.

If you have any queries in relation to any of the content contained in this document, please do get in touch with your Contracts Manager or telephone our Head Office on 0121 289 3258.