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Working safely during coronavirus (COVID-19)

From:

Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy

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Guidance for people working in, visiting or delivering to other people's homes.

3.2 Moving around when working in a home

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Objective: To maintain social distancing wherever possible while performing work in the home.

It is recognised that for providers of some in-home services, it will not always be possible to maintain physical distance from customers.

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If it is not possible to maintain social distancing guidelines (2m, or 1m with risk mitigation where 2m is not viable) while working in the home, then extra attention needs to be paid to equipment, cleaning and hygiene to reduce risk.

Working materials, such as tools or domestic appliances, should be assigned to an individual and not shared if possible. If they need to be shared, they should be shared by the smallest possible number of people.

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6.1 Personal protective equipment (PPE)

Where you are already using PPE in your work activity to protect against non-COVID-19 risks, you should continue to do so.

COVID-19 is a different type of risk to the risks you normally face in a workplace, and needs to be managed through social distancing, hygiene and fixed teams or partnering, not through the use of PPE.

Workplaces should not encourage the precautionary use of extra PPE to protect against COVID-19 outside clinical settings or when responding to a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19.

Unless you are in a situation where the risk of COVID-19 transmission is very high, your risk assessment should reflect the fact that the role of PPE in providing additional protection is extremely limited. However, if your risk assessment does show that PPE is required, then you must provide this PPEfree of charge to workers who need it. Any PPE provided must fit properly.

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6.2 Face coverings

Face coverings are not a replacement for the other ways of managing risk, including minimising time spent in contact, using fixed teams and partnering for close-up work, and increasing hand and surface washing. These other measures remain the best ways of managing risk in the workplace and government would therefore not expect to see employers relying on face coverings as risk management for the purpose of their health and safety assessments.