As lockdown restrictions begin to be eased, with more ‘non-essential’ businesses re-opening and new rules on who you can meet, it’s more important than ever to not become complacent about the risk of coronavirus.
As part of the medical and social care supply chain, Acorn Stairlifts remained open throughout the pandemic. We’ve been keeping our existing customers’ stairlifts running – vital when many are confined to their homes – and installing new ones in cases of urgent and compelling need.
We’ve been observing strict social distancing and hygiene protocols whenever it’s necessary to visit a customer’s home, and for staff in our own head offices and factories in West Yorkshire. Many of our staff have been furloughed or working from home (especially those deemed at special risk) with a range of extra safety measures put in place for those still working.
Now, with more of our employees returning to work, we’re strengthening the measures in place to protect them. They include reorganising and relocating departments to enhance and maintain social distancing, daily temperature checks, one-way systems in place within our buildings and intensified cleaning regimes.
Posters are also in place throughout our buildings as a visual reminder to all employees, especially those returning to work, to keep maintaining social distancing and following other covid-19 guidelines. When it emerged that some people find it hard to visualise exactly what two metres apart looks like, we came up with some ideas to help illustrate it.
A favourite is to “Keep one Ricky apart at all times!” It’s based on one of our workers, Ricky Hacking, who stands just over 6ft 6ins tall, or two metres. Ricky kindly agreed to pose for the posters as a fun way of helping his colleagues protect themselves.
The posters also use the width of an Acorn Stairlift carriage, because that’s something we’re all familiar with here and can easily visualise. Three carriages placed next to each other add up to the all-important two-metre safety zone.
Perhaps you can think of something – or someone! – to help you visualise what two metres looks like. For example, a standard UK door is fractionally under two metres in height, a king size bed is about the same length and so is two full-size guitars placed end-to-end. Another way is to hold one arm outstretched sideways and look at the length from the wrist on that arm to the shoulder that’s furthest away. For the average adult that’s about one metre, so just double that.
However you do it, make sure you maintain the two-metre rule and keep practising regular and thorough hand hygiene to limit your risk of catching coronavirus. Remember, we might be over the worst, but it hasn’t gone away yet!