Updates
Update, 3 February 2022
Published: 03 February 2022
In line with the recent changes in government guidance, please see the updates below affecting all staff.
Booking annual leave
We are pleased to inform staff that we will be lifting the "pause" on new leave requests with immediate effect.
The omicron surge had forced us to "pause" new requests for leave between 17 December to mid-February.
With immediate effect, all staff may now request and take annual leave in the normal way.
We are, as ever, grateful to staff who put their own plans on hold to enable us to meet the demands on our services and keep our patients and each other safe. We also know that many staff chose to cancel annual leave in order to be here – thank you.
We recognise that staff who had pre-planned leave may have continued to take it and we are also appreciative of your contribution to the team effort as it is important we have staff who are well rested and who have taken care of themselves to be recharged to look after others.
We would encourage staff and managers to work together now to plan rest and recovery time where it is needed.
Communications around the process of selling annual leave will follow in the next week or so.
Homeworking
The omicron surge prompted the Trust to advise all staff who could work from home to do so, in order to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.
As the risks of omicron are now better understood, the government has now announced the end of homeworking. However, we want to be clear that the Trust position is that homeworking remains one of a range of flexible working options available to our staff.
The pandemic has enabled new ways of working which many of our staff and managers have valued and wanted to retain, and homeworking is one of those developments.
Whilst it is no longer a requirement to work from home, and we expect that staff will now start to return to our workplace; where staff have been able to effectively fulfil the duties of their role from home and maintain services, we will see more of a hybrid working arrangement that we had moved to pre-Omicron.
We know that some staff prefer to work on site for all of their hours, and we know that some staff need to be on site for the service they deliver – these staff can safely continue to do so while following all current infection prevention and control arrangements around mask wearing, social distance and hand hygiene (see below for full update).
For staff who can work well from home, they should work with their manager and colleagues to agree an appropriate balance that meets their productivity and wellness needs, as well as the needs of their service in terms of team cohesion, collaboration and connectivity.
We encourage staff, their managers and teams to work together to find the balance that works best at departmental level.
The workforce team have developed a range of materials to support staff and managers in working and leading remotely, which can be accessed at on the link below:
Social distancing and mask wearing
As the Trust hardest hit by COVID-19 in the country, it's important that we continue to do all that we can to protect each other and our patients.
Therefore, current restrictions and requirements, for both colleagues and patients, remain and will be monitored.
Face masks must be worn in all indoor areas, hands must be sanitised and washed regularly and a two metre distance must be maintained, except for in clinical and non-clinical areas where one metre is acceptable, wearing a mask or appropriate PPE.
Colleagues will also need to continue with regular asymptomatic testing either via lateral flow or LAMP.
Visiting guidance
Current visiting restrictions will remain in place, although are continuously reviewed. Controlled visiting pilots are taking place in some low-risk areas and these will be maintained providing it is safe and practical. If your area is not participating in a pilot, the following restrictions apply, as detailed on the Trust website.