The year of living with COVID-19

The year has been all about COVID-19 and trying to deal with the issues caused by the virus. The PCS Home Office Merseyside Branch Health & Safety lead, Dean Barron looks back at the events of 2020.

Few people knew anything about the coronavirus until it started impacting on our daily lives. When it became apparent that this was a major concern that would affect our working environment PCS and senior management teams had to start thinking about how to manage the risks the virus presented. The best way was to implement standard H&S practices that are used for all hazards using the same principles of:

• identifying the hazard, in this case the coronavirus;

• recognising the risk and what harm it could cause;

• and if unable to eliminate the hazard and associated risks, introduce measures to try to control the risks.

As early as the first week of March 2020 PCS wrote to senior management and the Home Office H&S team to express our concern and asking them to start carrying out Risk Assessments (RA) as soon as possible.

It was early days in relation to the virus spreading and as we all know, a few days later we had 3000 Atletico Madrid fans visiting Liverpool from Spain who had already banned large numbers of people from congregating in their country. Around a week later, in mid-March, most of our our workplaces were closed.

In May our employer implemented a “Phased” system to return staff to the office. “Phase 1” (critical staff whose role couldn’t be completed at home) gradually returned up to a maximum of 25% office attendance with the rest of staff working from home. This was one of the main safety measures implemented.

Later in the year a point was reached when the employer started returning staff to the office under Phases 3 and 4 in some areas. That was until the new COVID-19 strain hit and the infection rate increased leading to a further lockdown in January 2021.

PCS locally have worked closely with the employer providing assistance, including carrying out workplace inspections, having input into Risk Assessments, control measures, involvement in "campus" meetings and have been in constant dialogue with the intention of making the working environment as safe as possible for all staff. The official term used is “COVID-secure”, although PCS are not convinced term is entirely appropriate as it may give a false impression that COVID can’t be contracted in a “COVID-secure” building.

The control measures implemented across the Liverpool Campus are in line with Health & Safety Executive (HSE) and government guidelines. Some local measures go above and beyond the official measures required. This was achieved through a good relationship established with local management on to handle the issue.

The daily recorded infection figures of local Home Office staff prior to the most recent strain indicated that the control measures were working as there did not appear any cases linked to staff attending the office. These reports showed a reduction, and zero rates recorded in the weeks leading up to Christmas, before the new strain started to have an impact. However, when the new strain started to circulate locally the recorded Home Office rates reflected generally what was happening in wider society with an increase in infections.

It was imperative that the government and the employer reverted to “Phase 1” to decrease office attendance. This has happened although PCS believe the government could have gone much further and we dispute the classification that the roles of most Home Office staff should be deemed “critical” and so had no need to attend workplaces.

There is still much work to be done, especially in light of the new strains of virus where certain control measures that proved to be efficient in respect of the first strain of the virus may no longer be adequate, PCS Health & Safety will continue to monitor findings and push for better, safer systems, eg. is 2 metres social distancing still an effective control measure? We will be guided by the science and continue to press the employer for the safest possible measures.

Home Office Merseyside Branch can reassure members that we will continue to work closely with management in striving to achieve the most robust safe systems and control measures across the Merseyside Home Office estate. Members have been encouraged to get in touch with the branch if there are concerns about the measures in place and that continues to be the case. Click here to contact us.

Hopefully better days lay ahead.

Dean Barron (Branch Health & Safety lead)