From Birdcage Walk (Coronavirus Update)

Guidance for the wellbeing of our staff, tenants and visitors to One Birdcage Walk regarding the spread of Coronavirus.

Dear Member,

Like many of you, here at One Birdcage Walk, we have been carefully monitoring the situation concerning the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) . The Chief Medical Officer has now raised the risk from low to moderate. Therefore, it’s important as an organisation we put in place the plans and contingency measures needed to ensure the wellbeing of our staff, tenants and visitors to our premises. We wanted to keep you updated with what is happening here and across the Institution.

We are liaising with other organisations, including Public Health England, ACAS and the HSE to ensure we follow best practice in the workplace.

• Some basic guidance focusing on personal hygiene.

We have already taken steps to safeguard our colleagues in countries where there has been an increase in cases, such as Hong Kong and Malaysia by temporarily closing the Hong Kong office (now re-opened) and suspending face to face activities, as well as enabling staff in Malaysia to work from home to reduce the risk of infection.

We are continuing to follow Government advice and encourage members to do the same. When it comes to travelling the current advice states that all non-essential international travel should be avoided where possible until further notice. At present most international travel for staff has been postponed or cancelled and we are hearing about this being the case across industries.

If you have any personal concerns about attendance at an activity or travel, please speak to your employer in the first instance, who will help assess the situation. If you do not have an employer and would like some additional advice regarding travelling, our Heads of Department in Events and Member Engagement and Engineering, Communications and Marketing will be able to support you. You will not be pressured to attend any events on behalf of IMechE.

If you are planning to attend an event or undertake visits, please consider asking the venue/ organisation for their policy on Coronavirus which may help you assess the situation.

We do not have any current plans to close our building and business is continuing as normal. Should this change and Coronavirus is found within any of our buildings, it may be necessary to close the affected building for two weeks to minimise the risk of infection and to clean the building. If this becomes the case, we will ensure members are informed as soon as possible.

The Government continues to update the guidance relating to Coronavirus and we will continue to monitor this guidance and local situations across the Institution both in the UK and overseas.

Colin Brown
Chief Executive