IDE : COVID-19 Update

This is an unprecedented time for the country, with a lot of confusion, anxiety and uncertainty for many people and businesses, especially with the regular updates and changes in directive coming out from the Government every day.

• The government has announced that key workers include those in organisations providing the following:

  - Key Public Services - This includes those essential to the running of the justice system and other key government services

  - Utilities, Communication and Financial services - This includes staff for the information technology and data infrastructure sector.

• As we support the Ministry of Justice, Department for Work and Pensions, National Grid and various public and private hospitals (including 35 hospitals for Nuffield Health) and we are an IT services operation, we believe we are well within government guidelines, so we will endeavor to be fully operational as a company.

As a company, IDE Group are attempting to respond to our customers' requirements, whilst remaining within the Government guidelines and keeping our staff as safe as possible. This is obviously a very tricky balancing act to achieve, but as an IT managed services company, our ability to continue to service our clients, to allow their businesses to continue functioning effectively is imperative. This is especially so with some of the front-line organisations we look after, that play a key role in ensuring the country continues to run as best it can in the current climate.

IDE Group's current position

With that in mind, I have bulleted IDE Group's current position in regards to trying to comply with what I have said above:

1. The Prime Minister has stated that if you can work from home you should work from home. Obviously our field engineers and the build engineers in our Lifecycle Centre can't work from home, as there is still a requirement for field engineers to attend customer sites and the build function has to happen at the Lifecycle Centre. It is our current intention to continue to provide these services until instructed otherwise by the authorities.
2. There is a directive on line from the Government which states that any companies in the IT sector (including field engineering) are still able to function normally, so again, unless this directive is changed in future, it is our intention to continue to provide services to our client base as close to BAU as possible. Here is the link to the current directive: Click here for Government Website
3. We are asking the field engineers, or resourcing allocators to always call the end user first before attending a fault ticket, to attempt to remotely diagnose a fix and only attend site in person if absolutely necessary, to minimise contact and stick as closely as possible to the social distancing measures suggested by the Government.
4. As part of that pre-visit call, they will also politely ask the user whether they have any symptoms of COVID-19, or have been in contact with anyone who has symptoms. If the answer is yes, the engineer will not be allowed to attend site. If the answer is no and they arrive to find the user with cold like symptoms, again they will be instructed to refuse the call and leave site.
5. Any employees of IDE Group, including the field engineers and Dartford team that are considered in the high risk category, have been told to stay at home and self-isolate in line with the Government's directives. This does mean that some services are running with less people at present than would normally be the case.
6. Any IDE Group employees who are showing signs of COVID-19, have been instructed to self-isolate at home for a period of 14 days.
7. All office based staff who can work from home, have been instructed to work from home. This includes the admin functions within the Dartford operation and all staff within our Croydon, Bournemouth and Bromley offices.

As stated above, it is IDE Group's intention to carry on providing services in line with our contractual agreements as best we can, but as I am sure you can all appreciate, these are extremely difficult times and we are trying to deliver to our customers' needs, whilst operating under various limitations and restrictions, so please bear with us throughout this period.

We will continue to react accordingly to any further changes issued by the Government and send out a company email issuing any changes to the above if necessary.

Kind regards,

Tony Everson

Managing Director