(06 Oct 2020, 11:37 pm)Storx wrote Cleaning is a funny one as in principle it should help but it can be counter productive at the same time as it gives a false hope and can make people become less cautious. Unless you are cleaning something every hour or so then it does very little to help overall as say if some driver has Coronavirus and he goes into the break room whether the place was cleaned 2 month ago or 2 hours ago it doesn't make too much difference and by the time it's probably going to be cleaned again the virus will have died anyway on any surfaces (s)he has touched. That said though it's not an excuse to not clean however.

Cleaning can never be counter productive to safety, but its only one measure. Personal hygiene (handwashing/sanitising) is just as important. There is a wealth of difference between something cleaned two months ago and two hours ago. There's plenty of material that you can read online about that.

Keeping the workplace clean is one of the Covid secure objectives. The risk assessment should outline exactly what, where and how frequently. In places like staff canteens, where you have fridge doors, kettles, taps, etc, I'd expect a risk assessment to require cleaning every hour or so during core operational hours, as they're all points that are touched frequently. Same goes for things like door handles/push pads.

The risk assessments that I've been reviewing are around 40 pages long per site and cover just about everything you can think of. Every Arriva site should have similar, and the employees should have been consulted on it.

(06 Oct 2020, 11:37 pm)Storx wrote You should help your employees self-isolate if they:

• have coronavirus symptoms and are waiting for a test result
  
• have tested positive for coronavirus
  
• are a member of the same household as someone who has symptoms or has tested positive for coronavirus
  
• have been in close recent contact with someone who has tested positive and received a notification to self-isolate from NHS Test and Trace, either from a contact tracer or via the NHS COVID-19 app
  

You should not share the identity of a worker who has tested positive with other workers.

That's the official guidelines and the bit in red is why they're not telling people to self isolate - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-test-and...e-guidance

That is a bizarre interpretation of the guidance and not one that I've heard of any employer knowingly use. Whilst you cannot tell workers that "you need to self-isolate or book a test because Joe Bloggs brought Covid into the workplace", you must of course still alert workers likely to have been in contact. There should be a specific plan in the risk assessment in case of a Covid outbreak in a workplace, and even with a single case, the employer needs to report it to the local PHE health protection team.

Given the stage which Arriva Darlington appear to be at present, I would imagine that the local PHE team are in 'crisis management' - part of that will be identifying contacts, communication, etc.

(06 Oct 2020, 11:37 pm)Storx wrote Arriva legally haven't done anything wrong and are just following guidelines there's nothing there about you need to police stuff (that's an adults job to make up their mind) and the self isolating is upto the track and trace team which is something for the politics thread. Whether that's right or wrong in reality is a different matter but I wouldn't say killing morale by shouting at people every 30 seconds while drivers are having their breaks is the best approach either and creating a managers / supervisors vs drivers split within the depot (mind that might happen anyway) and they simply can't disclose that a worker has the virus.

I'm not defending Arriva here but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a similar case at most depots or even any staff canteens and it's more that Darlington has been unlucky rather than they're worse than everywhere else but that is speculation I admit.

You've suggested a couple of times now that Arriva management should just shrug their shoulders at this. I wouldn't speculate as to what has or hasn't happened here, but the fact remains that employers have a *legal* responsibility to protect workers and others from risk to their health and safety. There's no ifs or buts about that - see: Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Morale doesn't come into it, but I would say that if workers are being 'shouted at' as you suggest, then this clearly is an inappropriate way to train, explain and manage health and safety in the workplace. Workers of course have a duty to comply.

I don't think that referring to a whistle-blower as a 'snitch' is particularly helpful either mind.