_{New safety protocols at TK Home Solutions}

In light of the developing situation regarding Coronavirus COVID-19, we recognise now more than ever, how important it is for you and your loved ones to have the independence and confidence to move around your homes freely. It is because of this that TK Home Solutions have been classified as a key and essential business by the Government and will remain open. This enables our people to still send their children to school if required, so that they can keep working for you, our customers.

Precautionary measures to minimise risk you to and our people

Whatever we do, we must ensure that we do it safely, responsibly and in accordance with the most stringent guidance from the Government and our trade-associations, British Healthcare Trades Association (BHTA) and Lift and Escalator Industry Association (LEIA). We will continue to monitor the situation on a daily basis and implement new safety protocols and processes as and when necessary. These actions currently include:

• Allowing all our office-based staff to work remotely to lower the risk of the virus spreading to them and their families.
• Communicating regularly with local authorities, following their guidance and monitoring the situation at a more local level.
• Strict no hand-shaking or human-to-human contact during meetings and at home visits.
• Postponing all face-to-face meeting within our offices.
• Strict new hygiene protocols for surveyors and engineers visits;
  • Gloves and antibacterial wipes supplied and instruction to wash hands with soap and water upon entry to the property and when leaving.
  • Distancing protocols which allow the customer to be in another room while we survey, install, service or repair your lift.
  • Prior confirmation of all appointments to check for isolation / shielding and allowing our customer to postpone any visit.
  • Regular updates to all of our field staff to ensure they are abiding by NHS guidelines and reporting any symptoms immediately.

Appointments

During the lockdown we will continue to conduct new staircase surveys, maintenance and repairs as normal. That means if you need a stairlift in order to be discharged from hospital or to enable you to move around your home freely, then we can help.

• We will do this in accordance with our new strict hygiene procedures which further minimise the risk to you and our people. A typical new-survey visit will go as follows:
• We will contact you the day before your visit to check you or no one else in your household is displaying symptoms.
• We will also check daily with our employees and if they have any symptoms they will not conduct any visits.
• We will call again on route to ensure the visit can still go ahead and no symptoms have developed since we last spoke.
• Upon arrival we will knock on your door and then step back to ensure there’s at least 2 metres between us at all times.
• We will give a brief overview of why we are here and what happens next.
• We will ask to use your facilities to wash our hands with soap and hot water before commencing any work, and then again after the appointment is complete.
• During the appointment you can stay in another room to minimise the risk as much as possible.

We understand that some of our customers still may feel uncertain about allowing people into their home, regardless of what safety and hygiene processes we put in place. That’s why we launched virtual surveys, a very simple way of attaining some basic staircase and person measurements and photographs of your staircase using FaceTime, Skype or WhatsApp.

Virtual surveys

Virtual staircase surveys are a new way of getting some basic measurements of your staircase and person measurements in order to provide a straight forward and clear quotation for a new stairlift.

The entire survey in this case would be carried out using a smartphone or tablet and shouldn’t take longer than 20 minutes. A virtual survey will not incur any additional cost to you and we’ll call you to make sure there’s no nasty surprises when the phone bill comes in.

We’ll ask you to count the number of steps, measure the width of the staircase, your height and weight and then will ask you to show us the staircase to make sure there’s no obstructions to worry about.

Once we have all the information we will be able to advise on the right stairlift for you and your needs and provide a quotation for you to consider. If you would rather have us still conduct a home survey we will do while conforming to our strict new safety and hygiene protocol.

Maintenance of your stairlift

For customers who already own a TK Home Solutions stairlift, we will be following the most stringent government guidance and working alongside our trade associations, British Healthcare Trades Association (BHTA) and Lift and Escalator Industry Association (LEIA) and local authorities in regard to service and maintenance visits.

In agreement with LEIA, we believe that stairlifts and home lifts within domestic properties are essential to the end user’s quality of life and provide them the freedom to move around their home confidently. In addition, we do not want to cause any further worry for those customers in what is potentially already an unsettling time for them and their loved ones.

As long as nobody in your household is displaying symptoms, and in agreement with your local authority, we will continue to plan and attend service visits to ensure the safety of your stairlift. We will do so while conforming to strict safety and hygiene processes, which include maintaining a 2 metre distance from all occupants (in fact, you won’t even be required to be in the same room), thoroughly washing our hands and using hand sanitising products before and after leaving a customer’s home.

Support

Amidst the developments in regards to Coronavirus COVID-19, we are still here to help you. If you call us we will answer and if you email us we will respond.

You can reach us by calling 01642 704 850 for sales, and 01642 704 870 for service. Or if you would prefer email; for sales sales.homesolutions.uk@tkelevator.com or for service, maintenance and repairs service.homesolutions.uk@tkelevator.com.