News

COVID-19: The UK government respond to BPCA

07/04/2020

After a strong effort from the team at BPCA, the UK government responded to their letters confirming that pest management professionals in the UK can continue to go to work as long as it's safe to do so.

In order to bring the issue of classing pest management as an essential profession on a national level, BPCA wrote to government ministers urging them to officially recognise the profession. UK Member of Parliament Michael Gove, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for the Cabinet Office confirmed that "the indicative list published in the guidance does not have wider implications, and does not confer special status on individuals included in the guidance pertaining to travel, business or any other services".

On continuing to work, Gove said:

"The Government's position remains that everyone who can work from home should do so.

"Where that is not possible, people should go into work where it is safe and they are not symptomatic, following relevant [Public Health England] PHE guidance."

The BPCA have created guidance for helping to decide should you keep trading/go out on a job, which is available here.

This regulation implies that all sectors supporting the following list should continue their activities:

  • Health and social care
  • Education and childcare
  • Key public services
  • Local and national Government
  • Food and necessary goods
  • Public safety
  • Transport
  • Utilities, communication and financial services

Ian Andrew, BPCA Chief Exec, said:

"While it's reassuring to see that BPCA's advice to the pest management community is correct, we'd have preferred to have seen the key workers list updated to explicitly include our sector and we will continue to push for this. If we go into further lockdown measures, we want to make sure that pest professionals can continue to travel and conduct vital public health pest management".

Read the full article here.

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