Key Worker Status

We are receiving a significant number of enquiries relating to criteria for key workers.

In order to assist you to determine whether you are a key worker or not, we would reinforce the following points:

  1. You should be a key member of staff i.e. delivering direct care to patients/clients in an NHS or social care setting (hospital, NHS practices, care home or homecare). This is also includes ancillary support staff, social workers, allied health professionals, cleaners, porters and catering staff).
  2. You should be a member of school staff (e.g. teacher, support worker, catering staff, janitorial or admin)
  3. You should be providing direct emergency service provision (e.g. fire, ambulance, police, coastguard)
  4. You should be a worker in the utilities sector (e.g. Hydro, water board, gas)
  5. You should be a worker in the transport sector (ferry, planes, hauliers, deliveries of food, buses)
  6. You should be a worker in food and/or retail distribution (e.g. butcher, chemist, supermarket worker, small shops providing food)

For those workers listed above, their children should only attend school in the following circumstances:

  • When they have no appropriate alternative childcare available to them
  • On a day when they would normally be working (i.e. Children only attend school when you are at work)

Education, like other services, is working with a reduced level of staff. Therefore, other support staff, in relation to the above criteria - such as admin, HR functions and finance - should have approval of line management and their names provided to the Education department (through their own service) from Monday onwards.

Vacancies and absences in critical care services have already created a situation where we  may have to redeploy staff to support frontline workers. Many of our teaching staff have volunteered to work across other services and it is therefore important that the pupils attending at our schools are those of key workers only.