As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and government lockdown, we moved to an emergency and essential only repairs service in March 2020, minimising the spread of the coronavirus by only entering homes where an essential repair was required.
This was necessary to protect the health of our residents and our colleagues, and to comply with government guidelines. Unfortunately, this meant we inevitably had to postpone hundreds of routine repairs jobs that were booked to take place over the last couple of months.
From 1 June, with lockdown restrictions now starting to ease, and after a thorough review of our safety guidelines and our stock levels of personal protective equipment (PPE), we will begin to contact residents to rebook their appointments.
We have a backlog of routine repairs to work through. And because of current challenges with accessing materials and adopting enhanced working methods to ensure yours and our staff’s safety, we are still asking residents to only report new emergency repairs for the time being. We hope to be able to resume bookings for new routine repairs in due course and will update you as soon as we can.
We would like to thank residents for their ongoing patience, and we understand it is frustrating to wait for a repair to be fixed. However, we believe it is right to prioritise those people who have had their repair appointment postponed from earlier this year.
The safety of our residents and colleagues remains our priority so we want to ensure we have the right guidance, training and PPE levels in place before we resume our normal service levels. We are currently facing issues with the supply of materials, with some merchants only partially open and operating limited services, which will hamper our ability to complete repairs. And, we anticipate that increased health and safety guidance may mean individual repairs take longer to complete than normal.
We know that many people may be very wary of letting someone into their homes at this time, and so we want to let you know that we are complying with all government guidelines and ensuring every step is made to keep you and your family safe.
These guidelines also rely on you and your family to take a number of measures for your own safety, and for the safety of our colleagues. The most important of which is to always keep a two-metre distance, even if our colleague is wearing PPE. If you aren’t able to follow these guidelines then our colleagues may feel it is unsafe to continue working on your repair.
When we carry out repairs in your home, please ensure that:
- you maintain a social distance of 2 metres at all times
- you improve ventilation in your home by opening windows where you can
- you don’t eat or drink whilst we are working in your home
- you wipe down surfaces in the room we will be working before we arrive
- you clear the area where we will be working and remove anything that may be in the way, allowing us to complete repairs quickly and reduce the time we spend in your home
- you keep your inside door open- it will reduce the chances of us touching handles and other surfaces
To make sure that our staff are working safely they will conduct a Covid-19 related risk assessment for all repair works being carried out.
We will be continually reviewing our approach to routine repairs and all of our services in line with the latest government guidelines and will communicate further in due course.