As lockdown restrictions become more relaxed across the three nations we continue to review our COVID Secure status.
We know several of our clients and some of our team have suffered from the coronavirus. We know several clients and a member of our team have lost someone very close to them because of the coronavirus. We also know of many clients whose wider friends and family members who got a tick in the box for surviving coronavirus have been left with a range of ‘new’ underlying conditions, ranging from the rather the trivial to the very serious.
For everyone who has had the anxiety of a loved one battling against coronavirus and particularly to those who have lost a loved one, we offer most sincere sympathies.
We are conflicted as many of our key-worker clients have continued working throughout the first (and hopefully last) wave of the coronavirus whilst we’ve been safely hunkered down.However, we are acutely aware that some of our team, and many of our clients fall within the ‘higher risk’ category.
We have therefore determined that we will maintain our current COVID status:
- Our Administration Centre is staffed 5 days per week
- Rhos on Sea and Ransom Hall offices are being attended on an irregular basis, several times a week.
- We are not accepting visitors at any location.
- We are not attending ‘real world’ face-to-face client meetings.
- We are continuing to offer full service via the telephone and via video-conferencing.
In the absence of further guidelines from the UK, Welsh & Scottish governments we intend to review our position in two weeks time, when the consequences of the most recent lockdown easing is better understood.
We hope that before the end of July we will resume real-world face to face meetings, albeit socially distanced meetings, and would hope to bring this date forward if the sun is shining and we’re able to meet in client’s gardens.
In anticipation, we have drafted robust procedures to perform immediately before stepping onto a client’s property, and again to be performed immediately upon exiting a client’s property. We have already invested in alcohol based hand-sanitisers, face coverings, face shields and alcohol wipes (for digital pens and laptops). We are currently investigating the speed at which we may be able to deploy no-contact digital signatures for our own documentation and are reassured to see a number of providers announce plans to quickly move to signature free or digital signatures.
Our telephone and video-conference meetings have been available to prospective and existing clients for many years. This will not change as move into our ‘new normal’, rather we see some clients preferring the convenience and COVID-secure safety of our continuing this provision.
