An update from John Morris, Group Chief Executive

Coronavirus (Covid-19) is affecting everyone and the health, safety and wellbeing of our staff, customers and community is our greatest concern.

I want to reassure you that we are doing all that we can to remain open and operate our business as normally as possible during this time. As a housing, health and social care provider, it is important that we continue to monitor the Coronavirus situation carefully and follow government and public health advice.

Trident Group recognises that as the situation changes daily and all of the Group’s activities are deemed essential, we continue to have regular Business Contingency meetings to discuss next stages and respond to the advice given, taking appropriate actions to protect staff, the service and customers.

In response to this advice we have put in place a series of measures to protect the services we provide and can assure you of the following;

Our staff and you

Our priority is to keep our customers and colleagues safe and healthy. We are trying to minimise as much person to person contact as we can, whilst continuing to provide housing, care and support.  We are continuing to deliver care and support in a range of supported accommodation and community services.  We have fantastic staff who remain committed to putting people first and still doing what they can to keep you as safe as possible. We have advised everyone working for us to practice social distancing and good hand hygiene and we ask that our customers do the same.

If you have any Coronavirus symptoms, please do not come into the office and let our staff know if you have a booked appointment.

Contacting us

In our attempt to minimise the spread of the virus it means we have fewer team members in our offices and in our front-line teams. We are also taking the steps necessary to proactively ensure that all our departments continue to operate as normal and staff from all departments across the Group are working together in order to deliver our services to you. So it may take a little longer to get in touch, especially if you try to call us. With fewer staff available, our staff will need to focus on helping vulnerable customers and dealing with emergencies, please bear with us.

Contacting you

During this time, we will be making greater use of phone and online communication as a way of keeping in touch with our customers to ensure we are available to help and support you. Being a multi-site business means we have the capacity to work from a number of different locations and also work remotely to maintain our service to customers.

Financial support

Many of you will be worried about the financial impact this situation will have on you personally and also the broader economy.

If you do find yourself struggling financially as a result of the government’s advice to self-isolate or to socially distance yourself, or due to changes to your income then please contact your Locality Officer by email at localityteam@tridentgroup.org.uk or telephone on 0121 633 4633.

Adapting home visits

We may still need to visit customers in their own homes to carry out essential or planned work. We will be changing some of our processes to protect you and our teams. If we do need to visit, we will be asking a few questions to check that everybody in the home is well before we come in.

We will of course continue to support our most vulnerable customers throughout this period. If you think you may need extra support in the event of a problem please contact us on 0121 633 4633.

Please stay safe

We are all in unchartered waters, but we remain committed to providing our service to you. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us and we will do whatever we can to help you. During this time you may prefer, and we would encourage you, to call or email us rather than visiting our office, we completely understand.

Please look after yourselves and your loved ones, check on your neighbours and follow the latest government advice. Hopefully these small changes we are making will help make things a little bit easier.

Please be assured that in every single discussion and every decision I and the team make, the health, safety and wellbeing of you, your family and our staff is always the top priority. This is a time more than ever to put people first.

A very big thank you for your understanding as we adapt to these new ways of working for the foreseeable future.

Be safe, keep washing your hands and we all wish each of you good health.

Very best wishes,

John Morris
Group Chief Executive