This Risk Assessment relates to individuals coming to Grantham House, 55a Grantham Road, BN1 6EF for acupuncture treatment with myself, Nicholas Tilling. It was created on 3/6/2020.
Hazard 1: Other practitioners and their clients, as well as my other patients, also use the space and introduce a potential infection risk.
Actions to mitigate this risk:
- Eliminate use of waiting room. Encourage patients to only enter the clinic at the time of their appointment, not earlier.
- Require patients to use the hand sanitiser placed at the top of the stairs as soon as they have entered the building (before they have touched anything within the building, incl their own face).
- If patient needs to use toilet before entering the treatment room, require them to use hand sanitiser once again as soon as they have left the toilet.
- Show them directly into their treatment room which has been completely cleaned since previous patient vacated the room. I will open and close the treatment room door to prevent them from touching the door handle.
- Try to get agreed consensus from all practitioners using the building that they will use the same protocol.
- Stagger my appointment times, thereby minimising the chance of patients using the front door / hallway / staircase at the same time
- Sending a pre-treatment screening questionnaire
Hazard 2: Contracting Coronavirus myself within my workplace.
Actions to mitigate this risk:
- Wear a face mask and require patient to wear a face mask too.
- Clean my hands with soap and hot water each time I leave one treatment room and enter the other.
- Additionally, use minimum 60% alcohol hand sanitiser before & after each incidence of physical contact with patient whilst in the treatment room.
- Prohibit patients from touching the treatment room door handles. Only I will open & close treatment room doors.
- Air each treatment room for 1 hour minimum between each treatment.
- Keep at least 2 metres distance from patient during all discussion phases of treatment
Hazard 3: Myself becoming a vector for Coronavirus transmission to my patient.
Actions to mitigate this risk:
- Wearing a face mask myself, and also requiring patient to wear a face mask.
- Clean my hands with soap and hot water each time I leave one treatment room and enter the other.
- Additionally, use minimum 60% alcohol hand sanitiser before & after each incidence of physical contact with patient whilst in the treatment room.
- Changing into clean medical scrubs once inside the clinical environment at the start of each day
- Keep at least 2 metres distance from patient during all discussion phases of treatment
Hazard 4: My treatment room becoming a vector for Coronavirus transmission to my patient.
Actions to mitigate this risk:
- Require each patient to bring 2 clean towels with them to cover pillows and themselves
- No patient to touch treatment room door handles.
- All patients to use hand sanitiser prior to entering treatment room
- All patients to wear face mask
- Treatment room to be aired for a minimum of 1 hour between patients
- Treatment couch, chair, desk and any additional surfaces that have been touched to be thoroughly cleaned down / sterilised
- Encourage contactless or online payment only
Hazard 5: Use of toilet: this is the most likely room within Grantham House to provide a high risk of coronavirus transmission as potentially every practitioner and every client may use it.
Actions to mitigate this risk:
- Require everybody using toilet to use hand sanitiser both before entering and after leaving the toilet.
- Keep the window open.
- Regularly clean the toilet seat, toilet handle, sink, taps, door handles throughout the day.
- Try to get agreed consensus from all practitioners using the building that they will use the same protocol.
