CORONA VIRUS (COVID-19): LAA CONTINGENCY PLANNING

[Steve Slater]

As concern regarding the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) is increasing in the UK, it is sensible we continue to review our precautions. The UK Chief Medical Officers continue to rate the risk to the public as ‘moderate’ at the current time and continues to advise that most people can continue to go to work, school and other public places as normal. However should outbreaks occur in the region around LAA HQ, it could potentially be necessary to reduce the number of people in the workplace, or close the office entirely.

An LAA working group, headed by the CEO is meeting weekly or ‘as required’ to review the situation. We will only act on information from formal sources. This means Public Health England, the National Health Service, or any other body specified by the Government. We will continue to follow UK Government Guidance in our actions.

We have developed future strategies based on three contingency levels shown below. Currently we are at ‘Level 1’, effectively business as usual with some enhanced precautions. We have also recommended that any staff planning to attend off-site meetings and conferences take sensible hygiene precautions and that all staff review any other travel arrangements.

Currently, we plan to continue with member training courses at LAA HQ. Any potential cancellations will be reviewed on an ‘ad-hoc’ basis and communicated to attendees and facilitators as required. We are still planning that the LAA Rally on 4, 5, 6 September will go ahead. No decision on any potential Rally cancellation will be made before June at the earliest, three months out from the event.


Level 1. Office Remains Open. Enhanced precautions
We strongly recommend that all staff and visitors take simple precautions to avoid catching or spreading germs and try to avoid close contact with people (other employees, family, friends) who are unwell.

On site meetings involving external contacts are being reduced if possible. Video conference facilities to be used if necessary.

An e-mail has already been sent to all members and non-members planning to attend events at LAA HQ reminding them of appropriate precautions to minimise the risk of their carrying COVID-19 to LAA events.


Level 2. Reduced Office Manning

If the situation escalates, we may reduced manning of the LAA HQ, with just key staff on site and other staff working from home using the Cloud remote access system, dropping into the office to receive or update paperwork as required.

LAA Training events would of course be postponed, with any attendees being contacted with the maximum notice.

The Reception desk will be unstaffed. Reception and part-time staff will work from home on administrative tasks.

An e-mail will be sent to all members informing them of reduced office operations and requesting that they e-mail [email protected] or [email protected], rather than call by telephone. Please DO NOT send a mail directly to a recipient’s personal e-mail address or leave a voicemail on a direct line as it may not be forwarded.

Level 3. Full Office Closure

This may be either as a result of staff being identified as having become infected, or others on the airfield or in the immediate vicinity having shown symptoms. We will be led on this by advice from NHS England and other authorities.

If a decision is made to close the office, we will adopt the following actions:

The office will be closed and locked. Only key staff or those allocated specific tasks will be admitted. All staff where appropriate, will work from home using Cloud based remote access to handle e-mails and other correspondence.

Please e-mail [email protected] or [email protected], rather than call by telephone.
Postal deliveries will be picked up from the local sorting office. Please avoid deliveries by hand to LAA HQ.

‘Mod’ review and other documentation will be taken off-site by the responsible engineers and dealt with remotely.

The decision to reopen the office will be made by the CEO based on NHS England advice.

To re-iterate, these are future contingency plans.

Currently it is very much ‘business as usual’ at LAA HQ!