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Swine Flu Pandemic Current Health and Safety Advice for Employers should a pandemic arrive
May 27, 2009
We have been contacted by several of our clients for advice on what to do to prepare for a swine flu pandemic. Keeping things basic, we have listed below 10 ways of reducing the risk to your employees.
1. Put in place a plan of what to do in a flu pandemic – considering some of the following.
2. Identify what tasks are essential to your core business and key staff – think about how you can cover these jobs safely during the pandemic. Training for some staff may be necessary. You should also identify employees with existing chronic medical conditions like asthma, who are more likely to be severely affected.
3. Review HR policies and reduce bureaucracy – employees who are ill or think they are ill need to be encouraged to stay at home and to seek medical advice.
4. Encourage flexible working practices – this might mean encouraging people to work from home or flexible hours to enable employees to look after ill dependents, look after children if schools are closed and to reduce the time spent on public transport, where there is more chance of being infected.
5. Consider suppliers and sub-contractors – ensure they have continuity measures in place and are aware of your plan.
6. Review your cleaning regime/contract – maintaining a high level of hygiene in the workplace is important. Consider disinfecting door handles and telephones daily and providing anti-bacterial hand gel for staff and visitors to use when entering the premises and regularly during the day.
7. Encourage employees to take personal responsibility to protect themselves – encourage hand washing, wearing gloves on public transport, using tissues only once and disposing of tissues properly so that cleaners don’t come into contact with them and covering nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing.
8. Consider cancelling conferences or meetings - why not hold video conferences or online meetings instead?
9. If you do decide to go ahead with an event, use a risk assessment to identify the precautions that can be taken to minimise the spread of infection – this might include cleaning the room and ensuring it is well ventilated, providing good hand washing facilities and trying to avoid people queuing at entrances or in catering areas.
10. Keep in touch with government advice, which changes daily in this circumstances.
Another useful point to note, if you wear face masks and are not infected they have little effect in preventing you catching the flu virus as the virus will go through them, but if someone wears them who is infected they do help to prevent the virus spreading to others by reducing the ejection distance of the virus from the patient, i.e. when sneezing, coughing and general breathing.
In the meantime…
With regards to areas where suspect or confirmed cases have been identified, if at all possible keep your staff away, firstly to stop them being infected but also to generally prevent the virus spreading.
If your employees conduct home visits, ensure that your staff carry anti-bacterial hand gel (hands and wrists) and wipes (face) and use them on their hands and face before and after visits.
If possible, avoid public transport, consider walking, cycling or private car – the virus can travel up to 10 metres from the patient if they sneeze.
If you need anymore information, please contact us on info@oms.uk.com.
Posted by Clive Ormerod
1. Put in place a plan of what to do in a flu pandemic – considering some of the following.
2. Identify what tasks are essential to your core business and key staff – think about how you can cover these jobs safely during the pandemic. Training for some staff may be necessary. You should also identify employees with existing chronic medical conditions like asthma, who are more likely to be severely affected.
3. Review HR policies and reduce bureaucracy – employees who are ill or think they are ill need to be encouraged to stay at home and to seek medical advice.
4. Encourage flexible working practices – this might mean encouraging people to work from home or flexible hours to enable employees to look after ill dependents, look after children if schools are closed and to reduce the time spent on public transport, where there is more chance of being infected.
5. Consider suppliers and sub-contractors – ensure they have continuity measures in place and are aware of your plan.
6. Review your cleaning regime/contract – maintaining a high level of hygiene in the workplace is important. Consider disinfecting door handles and telephones daily and providing anti-bacterial hand gel for staff and visitors to use when entering the premises and regularly during the day.
7. Encourage employees to take personal responsibility to protect themselves – encourage hand washing, wearing gloves on public transport, using tissues only once and disposing of tissues properly so that cleaners don’t come into contact with them and covering nose and mouth when coughing or sneezing.
8. Consider cancelling conferences or meetings - why not hold video conferences or online meetings instead?
9. If you do decide to go ahead with an event, use a risk assessment to identify the precautions that can be taken to minimise the spread of infection – this might include cleaning the room and ensuring it is well ventilated, providing good hand washing facilities and trying to avoid people queuing at entrances or in catering areas.
10. Keep in touch with government advice, which changes daily in this circumstances.
Another useful point to note, if you wear face masks and are not infected they have little effect in preventing you catching the flu virus as the virus will go through them, but if someone wears them who is infected they do help to prevent the virus spreading to others by reducing the ejection distance of the virus from the patient, i.e. when sneezing, coughing and general breathing.
In the meantime…
With regards to areas where suspect or confirmed cases have been identified, if at all possible keep your staff away, firstly to stop them being infected but also to generally prevent the virus spreading.
If your employees conduct home visits, ensure that your staff carry anti-bacterial hand gel (hands and wrists) and wipes (face) and use them on their hands and face before and after visits.
If possible, avoid public transport, consider walking, cycling or private car – the virus can travel up to 10 metres from the patient if they sneeze.
If you need anymore information, please contact us on info@oms.uk.com.
Posted by Clive Ormerod
