To report a potential outbreak of infection or if you are concerned about a case of infection in your setting, please contact the local Health Protection Team on 020 3837 7084 (option 0, then option 2) or necl.team@phe.gov.uk. Please also inform the local authority of these situations via email on publichealth@haringey.gov.uk.
Category: Health and Safety
Dear colleagues
I just wanted to share some key information on the monkeypox outbreak in the UK with you. At the moment the overall risk to the public is low, and the overall situation and comms is being managed by UK Health Security Agency.
Monkeypox is a viral infection usually associated with travel to West Africa, but we are seeing cases transmitted in the UK at the moment. The number of cases is low, but is rising and we expect to see more cases as public awareness of symptoms is increasing. In the medium term, due to the low transmissibility of the infection, public health experts believe the numbers ware likely to start to come under control. At present cases at a local authority level are not being disclosed due to small overall numbers and potential to identify individual patients.
The virus can spread if there is close contact between people with infectious lesions (pox). Recent cases are predominantly in gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, so UKHSA are advising these groups to be alert to any unusual rashes or lesions on any part of their body, especially their genitalia, and to contact a sexual health service if they have concerns. Risks of transmission in schools, nurseries and other community settings is very low at present. As a local authority and commissioner of sexual health services, we are working with our sexual health services to ensure they have the latest information on how to identify and manage cases safely and reduce impacts on staff who may have to self isolate if they are in contact with a monkey pox case.
Background info on monkeypox
Mokeypox is usually a mild self-limiting illness, spread by very close contact with someone with monkeypox and most people recover within a few weeks.
Symptoms
- Unusual rashes or lesions on the body such as the face or genital area
- Fever
- Muscle aches
- Chills and exhaustion
- Headaches
- Swollen lymph nodes
The virus can enter the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract or through the eyes, nose or mouth.
If you get infected with monkeypox, it usually takes between five and 21 days for the first symptoms to appear. Symptoms include fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills and exhaustion.
A rash can develop, often beginning on the face, then spreading to other parts of the body. The rash changes and goes through different stages – a bit like chicken pox – before finally forming a scab, which later falls off.
The virus can spread if there is close contact between people through:
- touching clothing, bedding or towels used by someone with the monkeypox rash
- touching monkeypox skin blisters or scabs
- the coughs or sneezes of a person with the monkeypox rash
Anyone with concerns that they could be infected should see a health professional but make contact with the clinic or surgery ahead of a visit. NHS 111 can also give advice.
We will share further updates as needed as the situation develops.
Additional information is available on the government and NHS websites:
Monkeypox – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Dr Will Maimaris
Director of Public Health
Haringey Council
Mobile: 07919 357421
Email: will.maimaris@haringey.gov.uk
We all want to get back to normal – we want our children to go to school, do the things they love and catch up on lost time spent time with family and friends. But COVID-19 is still active and causing some children to miss out on their education and things they enjoy.
The Joint Committee on Vaccine and Immunisation (JCVI) recommends that 5-11 year olds are offered the vaccine, which has been approved by the UK’s medicines regulator, to boost immunity and increase their protection against any future waves of COVID-19. The NHS wants to support families to make an informed choice, and to make things convenient and child friendly for those who do decide to take up the offer of COVID-19 vaccination for their child.
The COVID-19 vaccine is already making a big difference in helping to protect us all. The vaccine does not remove the virus, but research and experience in countries around the world shows it can prevent the worst effects of COVID-19 and reduce the risk of infection for your child and those around them.
Parents can make an appointment for their child’s vaccine through the National Booking Service: nhs.uk/coronavirus or by calling 119 free of charge.
Currently there are three vaccination clinics offering the COVID-19 vaccine to this age group in Haringey:
- Lordship Lane Health Centre, 239 Lordship Lane, N17 6AA
- Bounds Green Group Practice, Gordon Road, N11 2PF
- Hornsey Central Neigbourhood Health Centre, 151 Park Road, London N8 8JD
Walk-in clinics are also available at these sites where 5-11-year-olds as well as older siblings, or other family members, can be vaccinated together at the same time. Simply check the walk-in finder website: www.nhs.uk/grab-a-jab before attending to check clinic timings.
Children aged 5-11 with no other underlying health conditions will be offered two paediatric (child) doses of the vaccine, with at least 12 weeks between doses. A paediatric dose is smaller than doses given to those aged 12 and over.
If a child has had COVID-19 they will still get extra protection from the vaccine, but they will need to wait 12 weeks before getting vaccinated.
Those 5-11 year-olds who are more at risk from the virus can already get two paediatric (child) doses, eight weeks apart, and their GP or hospital specialist should be in touch to arrange this.
A guide to Covid-19 vaccination for parents of children aged 5-11 has been produced. This can be accessed here
Educational visits are a great benefit to the development of children, providing opportunities to broaden their horizons and enrich their education and life experiences.
Schools are required to plan visits, taking into consideration the type of visit, location, and activities. While routine visits will involve no more than an everyday level of risk and will be covered by the school’s existing policies and procedures, for higher risk activities, your school will need specialist staff with specific skills.
Haringey Health and Safety has prepared a written procedure which all maintained schools must follow. The Procedure HSP25 Organising Educational Visits is available on the Haringey Traded Services (Novus) website along with all Haringey procedures and forms.
Additionally, Maintained Schools must use the Evolve system to plan visits for category 2 and 3 trips. Definitions of trip categories are detailed in the procedure. Schools are also required to appoint an Educational Visits Coordinator, who should:
- be an experienced visits leader
- have the status to be able to guide the working practices of other staff
- be confident in assessing the ability of other staff to lead visits
- be confident in assessing outside activity providers
- be able to advise headteachers and governors when they’re approving trips
- have access to training, advice and guidance.
For category 3 visits (residential and adventurous,) schools need to have local authority approval prior to visits taking place. Using the Evolve system facilitates this by placing all the necessary documentation into one location; the system automatically notifies the local authority when trips are ready for approval. The local authority can then evaluate the information provided and either approve the visit or advise schools if additional information is required.
Finally, schools are required to submit category 3 visits on Evolve six weeks ahead of the planned date. This is to allow the LA to evaluate the information and where required for schools to add or amend documentation.
If your school does not have an Educational Visits Coordinator or the existing co-ordinator requires training, please contact health.safetyadvice@haringey.gov.uk. The Health and Safety Team will provide training.
The Health and Safety Team would like to remind schools that all Health and Safety documentation, procedures, forms, and model policies, have been uploaded to the Traded Services (Novus) Website.
Schools can now access and download all necessary documentation from the Haringey health and safety management system for inclusion into the school’s management system. The procedures and forms will support schools in ensuring compliance with Health and Safety Law and provide essential information to staff and senior managers on how to fulfil their responsibilities for a safe workplace.
Working with competent advisors, we have now developed procedures following HSE regulations, Approved Codes of Practice, and best practice to ensure full compliance with current H&S law. Procedures and supporting documentation have been through rigorous consultation and approved by unions and the Corporate Health, Safety and Wellbeing Board.
You can find the documents by logging on to the Traded Services (Novus) site and scrolling to the bottom of the home page. Click on the link “Schools Information”. This will take you to the Schools Information Health and Safety Page.
The Health and Safety Team are pleased to tell you that schools which have an SLA agreement with Haringey Health and Safety now have access to IHASCO online training as part of the SLA.
The learning management system (LMS) allows schools to provide professional, accredited health and safety training to all staff, setting specific courses as mandatory, maintaining an accurate record of training completed by staff and issuing reminders for courses not completed. This will enhance compliance with health and safety law and Haringey policy.
An IHASCO Account Manager should by now have contacted all school business managers to set up your school staff lists and provide administration training for those managing the account.
If your school has not received an email from IHASCO, please contact Jack Pitts (IHASCO Account Manager) by email to jack.pitts@ihasco.co.uk, Jack will create your schools IHASCO Account and provide you with an introduction to the system.
The Health and Safety Team have administration access to the LMS and will be able to support schools with implementation of the system alongside the IHASCO Account Manager.
If you have any question pleased contact health.safetyadvice@haringey.gov.uk or Andrew Turton Health and Safety Advisor Andrew.turton@haringey.gov.uk
How to complete the educational setting status form – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
Page summary
This data will help the government monitor the impact of COVID-19 on settings, focus support more effectively and keep children safe.
Change made
Updated ‘Questions for schools: educational settings status form’ and ‘Questions for FE settings: educational settings status form’ – from 4 January, settings will be asked to provide information on the phased return process and the number of pupils or students absent due to attendance restrictions put in place to manage an outbreak or exceptional circumstances related to COVID-19
As part of your school’s SLA agreement with Haringey Health and Safety (H&S), your school will have access to professional, accredited online H&S training for all staff members, which can be completed at their convenience without disrupting work activities and requiring staff members to attend off site training.
Your school will have access to the IHASCO Learning Management System (LMS) which will enable the school to manage legally required training effectively, ensuring competencies of staff undertaking their work roles and provide an auditable record of training received.
IHASCO provides courses on a wide range of topics, covering all H&S areas found in schools and workplaces, covering all levels of employees. Examples of courses covered:
- COSHH
- Risk Assessment
- Emergency First Aid at Work Refresher
- Asbestos Awareness
- CDM Regulations
- Display Screen Equipment
- Electrical Safety
- Fire Awareness in Education (Mandatory)
- Fire Warden (Education)
- Health and Safety Essentials (Mandatory)
- Infection Prevention and Control
- Legionella Awareness
- Risk Assessment
- Safeguarding (Adults)
- Safeguarding (Children)
There are 82 courses in total that are available to schools, the full list will be available on the LMS.
IHASCO courses are calculated by “credits”, schools will be issued with an allowance of credits free of charge based on the SLA agreement, see table below. If additional credits are required, they can be purchased from the Health and Safety Team at a nominal cost of £1 per credit. Please contact health.safetyadvice@haringey.gov.uk when requesting additional credits
IHASCO Credits
| SLA Level | Credit Allowance |
| School Staff: 0 – 50 | 250 |
| School Staff: 51 – 75 | 375 |
| School Staff: 76 – 125 | 625 |
| School Staff: 126 – 225 | 1250 |
| Additional credits available @ £1 per credit | |
Once courses are completed, a certificate will be issued for the user’s retention, as well as being recorded on the LMS. The nominated school LMS administrator will have oversight of courses completed, due for completion and status i.e., part completed, failed. Refresher dates (usually 2 years) can be set, and delegates emailed automatically for notification.
Schools will be contacted shortly by the dedicated IHASCO Account Manager Jack Pitts, who will provide you with log in details, assist with loading staff member details, contacts for IHASCO, and give an introduction on administrating the system.
Alongside the IHASCO Account Manager, Health and Safety will provide support to schools where required. Please contact Andrew.turton@haringey.gov.uk for Haringey related issues.
This additional service is exclusive to schools and education settings purchasing the H&S SLA from Haringey, the Health and Safety Team believe it will provide schools with not only market leading H&S training but also save schools buying expensive training outside of the SLA agreement.
The Health and Safety Team look forward to continuing to work with you to create and maintain a safe and happy workplace.
Haringey’s Health and Safety Team is continuously reviewing and updating council policies and procedures in order to ensure information is current, in line with health and saw law and best practice.
As part of this ongoing process the following procedures have been reviewed and approved by the Corporate Health, Safety and Wellbeing Board.
- Accident and Incident Management.
- Health and Safety Training.
- Food Safety.
- Management of Radioactive Sources.
- Organising Educational Visits.
The updated procedures and associated forms have been uploaded to the Traded Services website – Health and Safety Pages.
Please refer to these documents for inclusion into your schools H&S management systems.
If there any issues with the documents please contact the Health and Safety Team Health.safetyadvice@haringey.gov.uk or call 0208 489 4589
Health and Safety (H&S) management in schools is an essential part of providing a safe work environment for staff, children and visitors, as well as being a legal requirement under statutory legislation. Implementing and maintaining an effective management system should be integral with all other aspects of managing a school, it is not an additional task.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guidance for management systems follows the Plan, Do, Check, Act model and as part of this, external audits support the local monitoring of health and safety and allows the Health and Safety Team to provide support where gaps are present in compliance with legal requirements. The local authority also has a legal requirement to monitor health and safety in maintained schools and an annual Health and Safety audit is a Haringey requirement for all maintained schools
The Haringey Schools Health and Safety Advisor arranges an annual audit with schools for this purpose, providing the school with advice on achieving compliance, answering questions that arise during the audit and supplying an action plan for the school to work with to address any gaps in compliance.
As with any effective management system, necessary documentation must be available to all relevant persons, headteachers, school business managers and site managers must all have access to health and safety compliance documentation. This can be easily achieved by having a central repository accessible to the relevant persons. This will become particularly useful if an inspector from the HSE or other enforcing agency should attend the school and request risk assessments, training records, maintenance records or any other compliance documents. Schools must ensure that H&S information is accessible and does not depend on a single employee for its access.
The local authority expects that schools will have all compliance records available, should they have a visit from an enforcing agent which may not be prearranged, or an auditor by previous arrangement. With the coming September term, The Schools Health and Safety Advisor will be arranging an annual audit with schools. The Health and Safety Team would respectfully ask that schools make every effort to keep to the arranged dates.
The Health and Safety Team would like to wish all school staff a restful and much deserved summer break. We look forward to working with you in the coming term
Andrew Turton, Schools Health and Safety Advisor
Email – Andrew.turton@haringey.gov.uk
Phone – 020 8489 3215
Mobile – 07811 976258