Managers demanding admin team come back to the offce

[Peanutbutteryogurt]

Hoping for some advice here as need to send a reply email!

I work part time, two days a week at home and one day in the office to do printing and paperwork. This system has worked very well since April and as far as I knew was ongoing for the foreseeable future. We got an email from some manager who I have never met saying as of next shift everyone will be expected to work in the office, basically as we wear masks and if we socially distance it will be fine!

We have a small office, on any given day there could be up to 11 of us in the one office. We have some cardboard screens in-between some desks and we wear masks. It is impossible to distance at all times when we need to move around, put something in someone's tray etc. Managers are insisting the office is completely covid secure. It is quite clearly not.

Do I have any leg to stand on here? I desperately don't want to go in. I have stayed home to work today while I have an email back and forth with this manager and will go in tomorrow as my usual routine, but I am worried about next week.

As it happens, I work for the NHS in a hospital. We are literally just coming out of the peak of this wave and still have over 200 covid patients in the hospital.

My DP is also in admin in the nhs. There are big chunks of his weeks work that can be done from home but there is a real push for him to be in. His office is tiny with no ventilation and there are usually 5 people in it (mostly clinical staff) they have all been in and out with covid, hes constantly having to self isolate. He has no issue going in to do the parts of his job that he needs to be there for obviously, put is pushing back around going in for the sake of it. There is still very much a culture of bums on seats which is massively unhelpful and unhealthy right now.

Yes! I keep hearing the phrase 'bums on seats' too.

What does the risk assessment say and include?
Hospitals are very good at ipc and radiation protection but in terms of general H&S it’s poor.
Beware

Pretty much sounds par for the course tbh. I work in the same sector, similar role, we get one day wfh a week on a rotation so we can socially distance. Been told this is to get a break from the masks. We have screens, strict processes about desk cleaning, masks on all day but like you eat at our desk with masks off. I think it's down to manager's decision rather than a trust decision as I know some services most office staff are at home. We could easily have more days at home but they like to ensure we are there if there's enough seats. So rather than have us at home if there's a spare seat in the office it's to be filled. We did try to challenge in the first lockdown when we weren't getting any wfh at all but then just got one day a week. I think just to appease us tbh. It's always been the view that we are public sector so are classed as essential workers so the advice surrounding wfh doesn't really apply.

Having said that I actually prefer to be in the office anyway, it's just the masks on for 8 hours I can't stand.

I personally think you are flogging a dead horse op but good luck.