Integrity Disability Hub’s Emergency Response Plan for Novel Corona virus (COVID-19)
The COVID-19 Situation
With the new coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak officially being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), companies all around the world have been taking action to stop the spread of this virus. At Integrity Disability Hub, we are aware of the risks that the coronavirus poses to our clients, staff and community, and we are taking active measures to prevent the spread of infection.
Some of these measures include implementing social distancing rules, providing resources and protective equipment to support workers, practicing good hygiene, identifying work from home opportunities, and modifying our sick leave policies to respond to staff absences.As part of our commitment to stop the transmission of the virus, we have developed a COVID-19 Management Plan in order to assist our business to plan for, respond to and recover from a pandemic emergency including COVID-19. We are aware that COVID-19 is a threat to public health and safety as well as businesses. As a disability support services provider, our operations may be affected by supply disruptions, clients accessing our services less often and clients consulting us in different ways. We have come up with a series of actions to respond to COVID-19. We have set up policies and procedures and activated our COVID-19 response plan. We have also altered business operations and transferred vital business knowledge to key workers.
Steps we are taking to manage COVID-19 effect
We are keeping up to date with official information on COVID-19 and directions from public health authorities including WHO and the Australian Government. In addition, we are keeping up with the latest research on coronavirus and relaying this information to relevant personnel. We have also developed educational resources and materials to cover COVID-19 signs and symptoms, ways of transmission, best hygiene practices and preventative measures. We have increased our communications about workers’ emergency planning and the preparation of emergency kits. To improve our community response efforts, we will work in cooperation with other providers, insurers, healthcare facilities, public health agencies, federal and state governments, and other relevant third parties. As part of our COVID-19 Management Plan, we have activated an emergency response plan to overcome challenges and to respond effectively to government and medical advice.
We have discussed individual pandemic plans with participants/carers and have changed our everyday business practices to help stop the transfer of coronavirus. We have urged our clients to not attend our sites or services if they are showing any signs and symptoms of coronavirus. When unnecessary for a client to visit us in our office, we are communicating with them via telephone, SMS, email, letters, blogs, etc.
In addition, we have increased the frequency of cleaning in our offices and work sites and are applying social distancing rules. To increase our social distancing efforts, group meetings with support workers and staff will be conducted via telephone/video conferencing. Moreover, we have identified our most at-risk clients and have come up with appropriate strategies to reduce/minimise the risk of infection. We have also examined our approach to delivering essential services and have designed an action plan so that we can continue to serve our clients during this time. We have outlined the required resources and suppliers so that we can continue to attend to your disability support needs.
An emergency planning checklist has been created to plan and respond to the potential impact of this pandemic on our business and community. We have completed a number of tasks to plan ahead for any potential challenges that may arise during this pandemic, and we will create new policies to tackle emergency situations including those which are unique to COVID-19.
Our Aim
We are committed to working together with other organisations to help our clients and community during this time. We are taking various steps to prevent the transmission of this deadly virus to ensure our clients, staff and support workers stay safe. If you would like more information about the new corona-virus, you can call the Coronavirus Health Information Line on 1800 020 080. This line is open 24 hours a day. You can also contact us if you have any questions or concerns on (02) 8729 7610 or by visiting our contact page: https://integritydisability.com.au/contact/