Hillbrush UK COVID-19 Information & Guidance

Potential Hazards

1. Living with someone with a confirmed case of COVID-19.
2. Have come into close contact (within 2 metres for 15 minutes or more) with a confirmed case of COVID-19.
3. Being advised by a public health agency that contact with a diagnosed case has occurred.

Control Measures

• To follow government action of self isolation and only to leave house on the following circumstances: for medical reason; to shop for necessary food supplies; for exercise once per day; and for essential works including those deemed ‘key workers’
• Any existing individual risk assessments (disability, young persons or new / expectant mothers) to be reviewed
• Maintain contact with line management and Human Resources (HR) and to follow company policy / guidance.
• Travel is only required for essential travel; reduce the amount of time using public transport and to implement social distancing where possible (2m clearance from persons and not to travel in groups of more than 2 unless it is immediate family)
• To continue following ongoing government guidance
• Stay at home and only attend hospital in an emergency. Do not attend GP surgery and phone NHS line (111) if further advice is required
• Company to ensure extremely vulnerable persons (Solid organ transplant recipients; people with specific cancers: people with cancer who are undergoing active chemotherapy or radical radiotherapy for lung cancer; people with cancers of the blood or bone marrow such as leukaemia, lymphoma or myeloma who are at any stage of treatment; people having immunotherapy or other continuing antibody treatments for cancer; people having other targeted cancer treatments which can affect the immune system, such as protein kinase inhibitors or PARP inhibitors; people who have had bone marrow or stem cell transplants in the last 6 months, or who are still taking immunosuppressive drugs; People with severe respiratory conditions including all cystic fibrosis, severe asthma and severe COPD; People with rare diseases and inborn errors of metabolism that significantly increase the risk of infections (such as SCID, homozygous sickle cell); People on immunosuppression therapies sufficient to significantly increase risk of infection; Women who are pregnant with significant heart disease, congenital or acquired.) are shielding themselves and following their specific medical advice issued to them no later than 29/3/2020
• Follow good NHS hygiene measures at all times
• Avoid all visitors to your home unless they are providing a medical requirement
• Do not approach delivery staff, allow packages to be left on the doorstep
• Do not take any antibiotics as they do not work against viruses.

Control Measures

If a worker develops a high temperature or a persistent cough while at work, they should:

• Return home immediately 
• Avoid touching anything
• Cough or sneeze into a tissue and put it in a bin, or if they do not have tissues, cough and sneeze into the crook of their elbow.

They must then follow the guidance on self-isolation and not return to work until their period of self-isolation has been completed.

Control Measures

• Do not travel unless you cannot work from home or deemed a key worker – implement teleconferencing for meetings
• Where an individual has recently visited these countries, they should self / home isolate themselves until further notice from the government (lockdown measures continue to apply)
• Please continue to follow any further national government advice provided
• Where an occupational health (OH) service provider has been appointed, please seek additional advice or concerns through this service
• All persons to limit their use of public transport. Where travel is essential, please use private single occupancy where possible

Control Measures

Where possible, please consider and implement the following practices:

• Stop all non-essential visitors
• Introduce staggered start and finish times to reduce congestion and contact at all times
• Monitor site access points to enable social distancing – you may need to change the number of access points, either increase to reduce congestion or decrease to enable monitoring
• Remove or disable entry systems that require skin contact e.g. fingerprint scanners
• Require all workers to wash or clean their hands before entering or leaving the site
• Allow plenty of space (two metres) between people waiting to enter site
• Regularly clean common contact surfaces in reception, office, access control and delivery areas e.g. scanners, turnstiles, screens, telephone handsets, desks, particularly during peak flow times
• Reduce the number of people in attendance at site inductions and consider holding them outdoors wherever possible

Control Measures

• All persons to dress appropriately for the weather
• Welfare facilities provided to shelter from the elements
• Maintain good hygiene measures at all times
• Appropriate respiratory protective equipment (RPE) masks to be considered as last resort however face fit test (FFT) must be completed to ensure mask effectiveness. It is advised to speak to your H&S competent person on these matters and supplies should be reserved for medical staff as it has been documented that supplies have been difficult to procure

Control Measures

• Wash your hands thoroughly and regularly.  Use soap and water for at least 20 seconds. Use alcohol-based hand sanitiser if soap and water is not available and hand washing technique to be adopted as directed by NHS
• Avoid touching your face/eyes/nose/mouth with unwashed hands and cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue then throw it in the bin.
• Provide additional hand washing facilities to the usual welfare facilities if a large spread out site or significant numbers of personnel on site
• Regularly clean the hand washing facilities and check soap and sanitiser levels 
• Provide suitable and sufficient rubbish bins for hand towels with regular removal and disposal.
• Sites will need extra supplies of soap, hand sanitiser and paper towels and these should be securely stored.
• Restrict the number of people using toilet facilities at any one time e.g. use a welfare attendant  Wash hands before and after using the facilities  Enhance the cleaning regimes for toilet facilities particularly door handles, locks and the toilet flush  Portable toilets should be avoided wherever possible, but where in use these should be cleaned and emptied more frequently

Control Measures

• The workforce should also be required to stay on site once they have entered it and not use local shops.
• Dedicated eating areas should be identified on site to reduce food waste and contamination
• Break times should be staggered to reduce congestion and contact at all times
• Hand cleaning facilities or hand sanitiser should be available at the entrance of any room where people eat and should be used by workers when entering and leaving the area
• The workforce should be asked to bring pre-prepared meals and refillable drinking bottles from home
• Workers should sit 2 metres apart from each other whilst eating and avoid all contact
• Where catering is provided on site, it should provide pre-prepared and wrapped food only - Payments should be taken by contactless card wherever possible and Crockery, eating utensils, cups etc. should not be used 
• Drinking water should be provided with enhanced cleaning measures of the tap mechanism introduced
• Tables should be cleaned between each use
• All rubbish should be put straight in the bin and not left for someone else to clear up

All areas used for eating must be thoroughly cleaned at the end of each break and shift, including chairs, door handles, vending machines and payment devices.

Control Measures

• Introduce staggered start and finish times to reduce congestion and contact at all times 
• Introduce enhanced cleaning of all facilities throughout the day and at the end of each day
• Consider increasing the number or size of facilities available on site if possible
• Based on the size of each facility, determine how many people can use it at any one time to maintain a distance of two metres 
• Provide suitable and sufficient rubbish bins in these areas with regular removal and disposal.

Control Measures

• Starting and finishing times are to be staggered and reviewed to ensure no build up of staff / teams in areas
• Workers who are unwell with symptoms of Coronavirus (Covid-19) should not attend the workplace
• Tasks are to be rearranged to enable them to be done by one person or as small number of persons without compromising safety measures.
• Maintain social distancing measure of 2 metres from each other as much as possible with supervision in place to monitor compliance
• Avoid skin to skin and face to face contact
• Stairs should be used in preference to lifts or hoists and consider one ways systems around sites
• Consider alternative or additional mechanical aids to reduce worker interface
• Any additional COVID 19 measures specified by your site rules must be followed. Details of this shall be shared at site induction
• Above hygiene measures and additional cleaning schedules to remain (regularly washing hands for at least 20 seconds with soap and warm water)

Any health concerns to be raised immediately to line management.

Control Measures

• Always consider if the task can be performed differently without having to breach the 2m social distancing rule
• Workers are to limit face to face working and work facing away from each other when possible
• Limit the frequency of working within 2m to an absolute minimum and ensure it is for strictly low intensity, sporadic work where exposure to this distance is less than 15 mins
• Consider introducing an enhanced authorisation process (permit to work) for activities where less than 2m distance may be required
• Provide additional supervision to monitor distancing and teams not to be rotated
• Continue to conduct dynamic risk assessments whilst completing the work and speak up if there is a safer way of completing the task
• All equipment to be thoroughly cleaned prior and after using it.
• Increased ventilation within enclosed spaces
• Sites should consider RPE for Coronavirus (Covid-19) where the two metre social distancing guidelines is not met. Equipment must be face fit tested to all users
• Consideration given to disposable gloves and eyewear to prevent and reduce potential contamination
• Reusable PPE should be thoroughly cleaned after use and not shared between workers. These should be stored in suitable places

Single-use PPE should be disposed of so that it cannot be reused and to control potential contamination is controlled (waste removed by a responsible, approved contractor).