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Covid-19 Update: Working from home

March 20, 2020

Dear colleague,

Thank you for your hard work and for helping to tackle the pandemic.  As an organisation we are doing what we can to support you as colleagues and employees.  If there are things we are not doing that you would like or recommend, let us know.  We may not have thought of that, or there may be another reason why your good idea is better timed in a few days or weeks’ time.

Schools close tonight, and we have already confirmed that therefore for some staff who cannot make arrangements, this coming Monday would a day of carer’s leave to do just that.  The government has issued guidance this morning on who it considers essential workers, and from that I would reiterate their clear guidance that only one adult in a household must be an NHS worker covered by that guidance in order to trigger access to ongoing educational provision.

We would urge you to work with friends and neighbours to do your best to make arrangements.  If you are concerned that living at home may expose your housemates or loved ones to the virus, or that your loved ones may expose you and prevent you working, the Trust has access now to over 150 local hotel rooms which you can use free of charge.  Yesterday’s COVID bulletin clarified how to use that resource.  The Trust is one of the first in the country to do this, but others will follow suit.  This will become part of the NHS wide COVID-19 response, so worth you trying.

An alternative for some employees is to work from home (WFH).  This is different to the question of self-isolation. We want to be specific about where WFH is now something we urge you to consider.  With over 1800 job titles in our Trust and almost 100 roles, we cannot issue a simple list to you, and so we need to continue to work on trust with your judgment.

  • If you work administratively, managerially or clinically in a patient facing area, we do not recommend that you work from home.
  • If you provide ancillary work, for example as a porter or driver, supporting patient care, including transporting samples or stock, we do not recommend that you work from home.
  • If you work in a corporate / backbone function, for example in finance, governance or HR, it may be possible for you to work from home.  We estimate that between 300-500 employees from our 7000 colleagues may be in this position.  At this stage we believe all our IT and estate staff do need to be on site.

Before reading on, we need to make it clear that if you are able to work from home there are circumstances where we may ask you to return to site, and that includes circumstances where we ask you to undertake different work in support of the pandemic response.  We also should make it clear that we are not telling you to work from home, just making sure your options are clear.  We will reassess all home working guidance on April 7th (unless instructed to do so sooner).  We also reiterate that working from home does not mean you do not complete mandatory training.  Obligations to complete on line mandatory training before 31st March remain.

We cannot provide computer equipment for everyone working from home.  Our priority is clinical areas for technology.  But we have published on Connect simple guidance for how you can use technology which you can download to run or be part of meetings, and how you can potentially get access to drives and documents.  Attached to this email is a brief guide from Martin Sadler which should assist with most immediate queries.  From April 1st we expect to have more capacity to provide technology for home working.

If you wish to work from home and are covered by the bullet points above we would ask you to do four things:

  1. Talk to your line manager and discuss this with them.  Their agreement is required.
  2. Send an email explaining your job role and the decision you and your manager have made to swbh.wfh@nhs.net  .This will help us know who is away but well.
  3. Download the My Connect App onto your phone so you can keep up to date with our guidance and stay in touch with the Trust.
  4. Make sure it is clear on your Trust emails and Trust telephone extension ansa-phone that you are working from home due to Covid.

Finally, I want to make it clear that you are essential to this Trust.  Working from home does not mean that you are less important to our fight or our future.  The NHS is a team.  But as the country moves towards significant restrictions on movement and an expectation of social distancing, we want Trust employees to make decisions ahead of instructions.

Please use this weekend to think through your plans, and then talk to your line manager today or early next week.

Every best wish,

Toby

Chief Executive

Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust