My RHA
A habit of a lifetime
21st April 2021 | posted in News
With two phases of the Covid-19 recovery roadmap now complete, and with two more ahead of us in May and June (all being well), it has got me thinking how the last year or so will influence our day-to-day habits moving forward.
For example, with pubs and restaurants opening outdoors from 12th April, I was among those who had booked a table at my local pub in advance to have a meal and it was an enjoyable (albeit slightly chilly!) experience, and one that I will be repeating.
But one thing I don’t plan to rush back to is shopping. I used to love having a mooch around the shops on a Saturday afternoon, but I currently have no desire to return to this and am quite happy to continue buying things online.
For others, it might be the complete opposite. Shopping in the high street may sound like their idea of heaven but going to the pub will not be top of their list.
And as restrictions continue to be lifted, it will force us to make other decisions on things we used to take for granted, like should we go the cinema or theatre, a sporting event or concert.
People should, of course, be able to make decisions they are comfortable with.
The same goes for our staff and residents.
So, for example, we have already accepted that our staff will likely be doing a mixture of working from an office and working from home going forward. If the last 12 months have taught us anything, it is that you can be flexible when it comes to work as long as the infrastructure is in place.
We met online with members of our residents’ scrutiny panel recently and many are looking forward to being able to meet physically in the same room again, but again we will be putting no pressure on anyone to do this.
We are now going to be able resume things we put off to ensure the safety of our residents, such as installing new kitchens and bathrooms in their homes – work which requires us to spend more time in properties. But again, we are also not going to rush anyone and if people still feel cautious about letting people into their homes, then we will totally respect this.
The pleasing thing is that the vast majority of our residents, and many of our staff, have now received at least their first vaccinations, with some also having had the second dose of the vaccine, so with that hopefully comes more confidence to begin doing things people took for granted before March 2020.
But it’s clear that we will be living with Covid-19 for a while yet, so it is understandable that people will want to do things at their own pace.
