The vital role of cleaners
Cleaning and hygiene is crucial to defeat COVID-19, says British Cleaning Council (BCC) Chairman, Paul Thrupp.
Lockdowns in England and Scotland following stay-at-home orders in Wales and Northern Ireland, meant 2021 started last month with a repeat of the disruption we experienced in 2020.
The resurgence of the COVID-19 virus in recent
months and the latest lockdown has again emphasised the
important role of the cleaning and
hygiene industry, and the bravery of the many operatives who have worked to protect the health and safety of others, often at risk to themselves, throughout the pandemic.
While many members of the public can work from home in a safer environment, many cleaning and hygiene operatives are going to work on the frontline in the fight against Coronavirus. Our colleagues are helping keep key industries like hospitals and health centres, food production and retail, transport and essential public services going.
Without cleaning and hygiene operatives keeping workplaces free of Coronavirus, people would get sick and these essential industries would grind to a halt. I’ve said this before, but I can’t praise cleaning and hygiene operatives enough.
The toll on some has been huge though. For example, members of the Association of Healthcare Cleaning Professionals (ahcp) are directly involved in managing and delivering cleaning and hygiene services in most hospitals, primary care and GP clinics and surgeries, nursing, care home and other residential care.
My fellow BCC Director, Delia Cannings (also of the ahcp), has described how her colleagues across the country have never relented in their dedication to contain the virus, with many going above and beyond to take on take on extra responsibilities, new standards and practices and set up the Nightingale hospitals.
She has written about how months of the pandemic have left some colleagues stretched and fatigued, and driven rising mental health issues, anxiety, and depression.
So, given the role that cleaning and hygiene operatives are playing in keeping the country going and protecting others
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and the risks, it is hugely annoying that 10 months on from the start of the pandemic, some of our people are still not classed as key or essential workers.
The BCC has repeatedly called for all our people to be given key worker status. I also want cleaning and hygiene operatives to be prioritised for vaccination, given their role and the dangers. I trust that our newly formed APPG will be able to drive through a radical change in Government thinking and that workers in the cleaning and hygiene industry will get ‘key or essential’ status, no matter which sector they work in.
Our industry is also helping design and deliver the improved cleaning regimes which will help restore the public’s confidence in public spaces and support our recovery from the pandemic.
It’s very relevant here to again highlight the guide to cleaning and hygiene terms that we published last year. It was designed to clear up any confusion from those outside the industry about what is needed in terms of cleaning and disinfecting to tackle Coronavirus, by providing an industry- agreed source of reliable, evidence-based information to ensure people stay safe and well.
I recommend it to anyone without industry experience who is designing a cleaning regime or seeking to ensure a building is safe to use. You can find it on our website.
The public themselves have a vital role to play in turning the tide against this terrible pandemic. I urge everyone to respect the lockdown rules to protect yourselves and others and help the country to recover. Please only leave home for essential reasons, and when you are around other people, ‘Hands. Face. Space’ is more important than ever.
Keeping socially distanced from other people, keeping your face covered and washing hands properly and regularly are vital. High personal standards of hygiene and cleanliness are a key weapon in the war against COVID-19.
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