Advice for community groups, organisations and volunteer networks
In towns and villages across Scotland, communities are fighting COVID 19. These pages provide advice on how to virus proof the fantastic things you are doing and reduce the risk of indirect spread. Please read them carefully if you are starting to provide support or reviewing what you are doing already.
Effective hand hygiene
Last updated: 13th September 2021
Thorough and frequent hand hygiene is critical to stopping the spread of coronavirus. You, your organisation or group should do whatever you can to reinforce this message at all times. There are opportunities for infection transmission wherever people share a physical space, work alongside each other, share equipment or materials so please make sure you follow these steps.
You MUST undertake hand washing whenever you:
sneeze, cough or blow your nose, including with a tissue
touch your face, especially your nose or mouth
touch computers, phones, door handles and other surfaces
touch any shared equipment or materials
enter and/or exit any premises or vehicles
enter and/or exit any communal areas, especially toilets
immediately before and after you deliver any items to someone’s home/doorstep
Put on, or remove your facial covering
If you are working or volunteering as part of an emergency community response then you need to be familiar with effective hand washing techniques and how long you need to spend on washing with soap and water or sanitiser for it to be effective. You can do this by watching this video: Hand Hygiene Soap and Warm Water Video 0:52 seconds
Make sure there are instruction posters on effective Hand Hygiene displayed throughout any premises that you use or visit: HS Hand Hygiene Poster: Hand Wash Technique and Hand Sanitizer Technique
If you are working or volunteering to deliver items to someone’s home/doorstep you might not have access to hand washing facilities on the move. You must use an alcohol based hand sanitizer as an alternative to hand washing between your visits to households to avoid any transmission of the infection and wash your hands with soap and water at the first available opportunity e.g. when you return to your base or premises.
You can learn how to use an alcohol based hand sanitizer effectively by watching this video:Hand Hygiene Alcohol Based Hand Rub Video 0.42 seconds
Some people are choosing, or have been asked to wear latex or other types of disposable gloves for activities such as grocery shopping and deliveries.
Disposable gloves are single-use items and intended to be used for a single specific purpose, such as an episode of cleaning or carrying out a care activity. If the gloves become contaminated they will then contaminate anything else that they come into contact with.
They are unlikely to be cleaned (and as a single-use item they are not designed to be cleaned and re-used) and may well give the wearer a false sense of security. If the wearer touches their face, there is the same risk of any contamination getting into their nose, mouth or eyes as there would be from unwashed hands.
Robust and effective hand hygiene is still the recommended way to prevent the spread of the virus, so we suggest that you carefully consider whether the use of gloves is appropriate for the activity that you are involved in.
Remember: thorough and effective hand washing is critical to stopping the spread of coronavirus.