COVID-19 Update

• 30 Dec 2020
• |
• Great Britain, Ireland, Isle of Man, N. Ireland

Message to Staff from CEO, Andy Mayhew

I hope everyone had an enjoyable, peaceful and safe Christmas. I know many of you will have been working for at least part of the festive period and I appreciate that commitment.

We are all hoping that the roll out of the vaccines will transform the outlook for our work and our home lives in 2021. However, even though we have started to see some of our service users and staff receive the first vaccine, it is important that we recognise that the need to be absolutely focused on infection control will not lessen any time soon. It will, at best, be many months before social distance and use of PPE cease to be of vital importance. This is still a killer disease and one which, by all accounts, now has a more infectious strain.

So my message is, to protect yourself, your service users, colleagues, family and friends by being meticulous about:

• hand hygiene
• maintaining social distance
• wearing the required PPE at all times in all service and office settings (including going in and out of facilities) except where there has been a specific risk assessment to identify that social distance can be safely maintained by other means
• taking your temperature prior to starting the shift and more regularly in line with policy
• not attending work if displaying symptoms and alerting your line manager if you develop symptoms while in work
• making arrangements to work from home if that can be done effectively
• paying attention to your mental health, especially by keeping in contact with friends and family in a safe way

It is all too easy to become complacent with something that has now been around such a long time, when we are weary of it and the vaccine is just around the corner. As an organisation you have done so well in protecting service users and each other. Don’t let it slip now. Now is the time to re-double our efforts to ensure the New Year is what we want it to be.

I wish you all and your families a happy and healthy New Year.

If you have any concerns or suggestions please feel free to contact me on +44 (0) 75 5212 7046.

For further government advice you can refer to the following links:

Northern Ireland

Public Health Agency (NI)

Ireland

HSE (ROI): https://www.hse.ie/eng/

Minding your mental health during the coronavirus

Dedicated Healthcare Worker COVID helpline: 1850-450-450

Great Britain

Public Health England

Our Frontline – Mental Health and Wellbeing: An initiative uniting the leading mental health charities to provide round the clock support to those working against COVID-19. To view visit this website.

Isle of Man

Isle of Man Government