News and Views

Cumbria’s Business and Economic Response and Recovery Group (BERRG) of the Local resilience Forum is reminding pubs, restaurants and other hospitality venues of the need to have robust arrangements in place to collect and store contact details for customers, visitors and staff, in order to support NHS Test and Trace.

The request is being made so that venues in Cumbria can protect their businesses by protecting their customers, staff and visitors. This follows recent events in Carlisle when members of the public who had attended a number of specific pubs and bars were asked to be tested for COVID-19.

Some of the venues involved provided excellent contact tracing information. This has meant that Cumbria County Council has been able to alter its approach and move away from publicly naming venues, where individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 had visited, if there is confidence in the quality of the contact tracing information provided.

Guidance for pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes on maintaining records of staff, customers and visitors is available at https://bit.ly/CV19BusinessTT

Jo Lappin, Chair of BERRG and Chief Executive of the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership (CLEP) said, “We would like to take the time to thank those businesses that are doing a superb job in adhering to the safe working guidelines and effectively storing information to help protect all of our people in Cumbria.

“Since the outset, BERRG has been promoting the need to work safely and in a COVID-Secure way and now that pubs, restaurants and other venues have re-opened this becomes even more important.

“Going forward, only venues that do not have sufficient contact tracing information will be named, as a general public message will be necessary to ensure that all possible contacts are made aware. We are therefore asking businesses to ensure that their Test and Trace contact tracing information meets the required standard.

“We are already seeing local lockdowns being enforced, something that we really want to avoid in Cumbria as our economy gets back up and running. That is why we are encouraging all of our hospitality venues to protect their business by protecting their customers and staff. The Test and Trace system is a critical part of getting our economy back on its feet after lockdown and complying with this will help us avoid an increase in infection rates. Working together and following the Government’s safe working guidance will help us avoid that situation. Many of our businesses are doing this really well and we need to make sure that all of our businesses are aware of what needs to be done and can learn from their colleagues that are doing this really well.”

High Spirits Leisure Group has worked hard to put its systems and processes in place with Colin Monk, Director at High Spirits Leisure Group saying: High Spirits Leisure Group own and operate seven venues in south Cumbria, offering a mixture of accommodation, food and drink locations which employ around 100 people. On a normal trading day the group would cater for in excess of 2,000 people, however, with the Coronavirus restrictions in place this has been reduced to around 1,400, as our tables are reduced to 70% capacity for social distancing.

“When a customer arrives we have a set procedure: customers are asked to wait at the doors to be seated, once seated and before any order is taken they are asked to either fill out our standard track and trace form or scan our QR code and complete online, this is then automatically collated on our system and stored for the required timeframe before being discarded for data protection - the same happens with our manual system.

“99.9% of customers have been compliant and understand why we need this information, with track and trace working alongside all of our other systems to ensure our guests feel safe to visit, drink and dine, and our staff feel safe whilst working. Yesterday was the first day of Eat Out to Help Out scheme, and with our systems in place it went well. It’s critical that we all do our best to keep our customers, staff and our businesses safe.”