Back out and slip testing – What’s changed?
- 18/11/2021
Most of us will have never experienced a period of lockdown like this before, where shops, offices, leisure Centres, hotels, restaurants to name just a few, closed down and remained vastly untouched or used for months. So, when we returned to testing as industries slowly re-opened we were not 100% sure what to expect.
We knew we needed to put further measures in place in ensure our safety and that of the public, as with most industries we have invested in PPE for all our technicians, wash sprays and hand gels to ensure technicians can clean their hands regularly as advised and barriers to ensure we could allow a 2m space around us where needed etc, and we were confident in our measures.
But what should we expect once we were out and about?
When we first went out to test again 13th May 2020, things were still very quiet, only key stores were open still and the majority of the public were still very much at home. Going out again there was quite an eery feeling as the usually busy shopping centres and offices were empty, but this meant we didn’t have lots of people to consider when testing and parking was interesting as most carparks were closed which presented us with different challenges!
In terms of test results, we saw in most cases where floors had not been used in so long the build up of dust was high and this was negatively impacting the slip risk. However, in the washrooms generally the results were better as the contamination and high footfall usually experienced had been eliminated.
Fast forward to W/C 15th June when more shops could open and lots of shopping centres were noticeably busier, but as per the various press reports, it was busy around key stores - Primark, Sports Direct etc. Near these stores the queues of people zigzagged around car parks and walkways, the bus stations also seemed busy and there are generally large queues outside the washrooms brought about from the various socially distancing measures. Some washrooms have closed off every other cubicle and basin, others are just utilising stickers and markers. However, a lot of other stores still seemed relatively quiet and more stores than we thought still remained closed completely. We expect this to change with changes in the furlough scheme and the new 1m+ social distance advice coming in to play in the next couple of weeks.
One thing we have noticed is every where we go the COVID measures are all slightly different, the stickers look different, with different messages different sizes and different shapes.
For the hand sanitisers some buildings have foot pumped hand sanitisers, some have a spray, some people have a bank of hand sanitisers others have these dotted around the premises.
Regardless of the difference everyone is achieving their goal in becoming COVID compliant, to differing degrees but our message remains consistent wherever we go. When putting these new measures in place they need to be risk assessed as they have the ability to impact your risk of a slip, trip or fall taking place.