Dear Xxxxxxxxxx
Napo demands continuation of safety measures – despite Government statements
Following last week’s Government statements on the Covid crisis and speculation over the weekend, we wanted to take this opportunity to update you on concerns around future relaxation or changes to EDMs and risk assessments.
For the last two weeks it has not been possible to agree a position statement due to our concerns about the increasing case numbers and the lack of information as to the guidance that senior managers are using to make their decisions about local delivery.
It is clear there is a political push to move away from any restrictions on the 19th of July, and it is expected that this evening’s Covid update from the Prime Minister may provide further information on this and the standpoint of the rhetoric of needing to “live with Covid”.
There is a difference between learning to live with and making adjustments to operational activities by employers to take account of the risk as opposed to seeking simply to return to how things used to be. Napo continues to take the health and safety approach to recovering service delivery – all activity and work environments must have a risk assessment with mitigations for the risks identified.
Our approach
We are continuing to push for a responsible approach to protecting staff from the risks of developing COVID-19 through workplace exposure and protecting essential service delivery where significant staff absence would threaten it. Any assumptions that mitigations such as wearing of face coverings and maintaining social distancing will be ended on 19th July must be resisted. Mitigations measures that are in place must remain in place until an assessment of risk indicates they can be changed or removed.
Our work on this has been hampered by HMPPS unwillingness to accept that there has been any workplace transmission which has resulted in individuals developing COVID-19 citing a lack of evidence. We are continuing to challenge this, especially when set against the backdrop of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) statement:
“Where a worker has been diagnosed as having COVID-19 and there is reasonable evidence to suggest that it was caused by occupational exposure, employers are required to report the case to the relevant enforcing authority under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR)”.
https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/coronavirus/index.htm
The HSE published data which showed that between 10 April 2020 - 12 June 2021 they received 33,448 notifications of which there were 402 Fatal notifications. The recent TUC report also highlighted the issue of under reporting, a fact acknowledged by the HSE.
Call for representatives to update us on local developments
In order to be able to give Napo Representatives, and our wider membership as much support as possible, it would be helpful for the following questions to be answered with the replies sent to hands@napo.org.uk
- How have reps been involved in consultations on the local decision making process regarding service delivery?
- How regularly does this occur?
- Have members raised any concerns?
- Have any changes been made to mitigation measures such as social distancing, room or building capacity, wearing of face coverings or PPE without proper consultation?
- Are you aware of any workplaces where there is a number of staff who are, or have had to self-isolate, due to contact with another colleague or person on probation?
Napo HQ team
Perhaps NAPO would do well to watch this press conference, which includes senior & well-respected medical experts calling out the govt's herd immunity policy... & questioning the veracity of the evidence presented by Witty & Valance.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihLq-eMtNJI
My favourite contributor is Prof.Pagel. She was on BBC a few days ago & didn't hide her feelings when the BBC presenter tried to argue with her about a scientific report...
DeleteRef the press conference video link - Gabriel Scally at ~19mins talks about legal requirements for keeping people safe in the workplace, e.g. active ventilation.
ReplyDeleteAlso important to hear what Dr Horton (editor of The Lancet) has to say at ~57mins onwards, i.e. that govt is going for unconstrained outbreak hoping for herd immunity & that caution has been dismissed from govt decision-making, & he's shocked that medical & scientific advisors are not being explicit about their concerns, that they are abdicating their independence & their public health roles with what he described as their "faux deference to shore up the Prime Minister's position"
ReplyDeleteNapo is too trusting or collusive with the employers and needs to start using freedom of information requests and use the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group to ask questions in the House about the number of staff deaths and cause of death since the start of the pandemic. Deaths may not specifically be due to Covid-19 but many will be Covid-19 related.
ReplyDeleteHow many probation staff have died from Covid?
ReplyDeleteI refused to go on the wings as a prison PO and faced a backlash from certain prison staff. They were still allowing visits at the time and taking transfers from prisons with known cases. They actively said no cases to claim safety yet healthcare advised of a suspected case at that time. Perhaps people should notify this forum of their experiences that the organisation likes to keep hidden.
ReplyDeleteMajority of probation cases are men. Recent stats indicate that (most likely related to euro football) there's a significant increase in men showing +ve for covid-19 delta variant. With govt's insistence on "freedom" & removal of infection controls, e.g. 2m rule & mask wearing, chances of infection at work must be considerably higher than they've been for some time.
ReplyDeleteUnions need to get a grip.
HMPPS/NPS won't be bothered about protecting staff; they're tied to govt policy so think its all hunky dory & will massage figures to suit that agenda, i.e. as civil servants you all have to comply with the govt position. You are servants of the ruling government. Know your place.
Reunification? You're deceiving yourselves if you think its a good thing.
TR1 smashed probation to smithereens.
TR2 re-configured probation exactly as politicians wanted it to be.
Probation management & unions were 100% complicit & well rewarded for that.
A la the probation/TR model, this govt is about to repeat what it sees as a successful strategy:
ReplyDeleteits going to crash the NHS into a wall using the Trojan Horse of its 19 July "freedom" policy & then rebuild UK healthcare using the private sector.
And its going to be a far more cataclysmic & dangerous outcome.