Safety Tips for Volunteers

Volunteer are helping others in greater need but need to be vigilant about their own safety and to follow Government guidelines to prevent spreading the Coronavirus.

Gloves

Recognising that gloves are a key way to protect volunteers then a quantity have been purchased (delivery estimate Mar 31) and will be freely available. These should be worn to protect volunteer and isolator from cross contamination from items the volunteer touches while shopping etc. Items will include

1. Basket handle
2. Trolley handle
3. Items on shelves
4. Cash

Most shops provide sanitising material to wipe basket / trolleys. Gloves can be used to take items from shelves. Cash should be avoided wherever possible (but see below).

Physical distance

In line with Government guidelines volunteers should keep 2 metres away from other people – isolators, inside the shop especially at tills.

Cash.

The best online advice we’ve seen (24/3/20) is here  On-line Advice

We don’t have totally safe system yet so are trying to get payment by card, online or on account. However elderly isolators sometimes only trust cash. It is unclear how long the virus can live on coins or notes – 12 hours and 72 hours have been mentioned in the press. The virus could be present in the isolator’s home or in the shop and we are looking to prevent cross contamination between isolator, volunteer and shop. In this case the best we have found is :

1. Volunteer wears gloves
2. Isolator asks retailer for cost of goods and puts exact change in plastic bank bag (we have a supply – contact Russ/Peter)
3. Volunteer gives bank bag to shop till and gets receipt for shopping
4. If isolator puts in too much money (eg didn’t have exact change, all things on list not available) then person at till puts change back into plastic bank bag. Volunteer puts bank bag in with shopping

Payment by phone

We have had instances where the person at the shop till has asked the volunteer to call the isolator for payment on the volunteer phone. The till person then uses the phone for payment details. We feel this is too risky and so either:

1. Person at till uses shop phone or their personal phone to call the isolator or
2. Suitable ‘barrier’ eg clean thin plastic used at butcher’s counter to catch sliced ham is put around volunteer phone.

Please let us know if you have any comment or suggestions