We know people across Yorkshire, the North East and northern Cumbria rely on our services. So we’re doing everything we can to make sure we continue to meet the needs of the communities we serve. As Covid-19 restrictions continue in England, there is no impact on the safe and reliable supply of gas to homes and businesses.

We are continuing to prioritise work in line with the latest UK government guidance, while observing strict guidelines for safe distance working wherever possible.

The safety of our colleagues and customers is our priority and we have extra safety precautions in place to keep you safe and ensure that our workplaces are Covid secure.

As well as our critical services, which include responding to gas emergencies, carrying out emergency repairs and essential maintenance activities, we are carrying out work to upgrade our critical infrastructure, including planned work to modernise ageing metal gas mains, where the majority of the work can be carried out safely in the street.

Our Connections works are also continuing where work can be carried out under UK government guidance for safe distance working. However leads times may be slightly longer than normal.

If you smell gas, suspect carbon monoxide or experience low gas pressure, please call the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999 straight away.  The line is in operation 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Before we visit we’ll ask you a few quick questions about your health:

• Do you or anyone in your household have a confirmed case of coronavirus?
• Are you or is anyone in your household in self isolation because you are experiencing symptoms of Covid-19 (coronavirus), or in close contact with someone who is?
• Are you or is anyone is your household in quarantine?
• Are you, or anyone in your household:

• • • over 70
    • living with a long-term health condition
    • pregnant

Please don’t worry about these questions. We will still come and help you – but we want to keep you and our colleagues safe.

Please be assured that if you or someone in your household indicates any of the above, we will make preparations for additional measures to ensure your safety.

We will only request entry your property in order to ensure your safety, or the continued safe supply of gas.

Questions

What’s the impact of Covid-19 on Northern Gas Networks?

There is no impact on the safe and reliable supply of gas to homes and businesses across the North of England. We are monitoring the situation closely and taking precautions to look after our customers and colleagues alike. We are receiving regular updates from the UK government, as well as public health organisations.

What precautions are you taking?

Keeping you and our customers and workforce safe is our priority and we have extra safety precautions in place at this time.

In line with the latest Government guidance, we’re continuing to carry out our critical services while observing guidelines for safe distance working.

To ensure we can continue to deliver the highest standards of service, and to protect our colleagues, customers and our communities, we have developed a risk assessment process to ensure all of our worksites, including offices and depots, are Covid secure.

Working in customers’ homes

While the majority of our work will be carried out in the street, it is important that our engineers are allowed access to customers’ properties so that we can continue our critical work.

We will take every precaution to keep customers safe during our work and we will only request entry to a customer’s property in order to ensure your safety or the continuity of a safe gas supply, or if invited to at a customer’s request.

Our engineers will follow UK government health and safety advice and are practising social distancing wherever possible.  As a minimum, they will stay at least two metres away from any customers in the household.  They will wash their hands thoroughly before and after the visit, ask you to open doors and windows and ask you to remain in a separate room throughout our visit.

Our engineers will also wear gloves and a face covering before entering your property.

They will also ask if you are also comfortable wearing a mask while they are inside the house.

When working in the home of customers with a confirmed case of coronavirus, who are quarantining or self-isolating because someone in the household is showing symptoms, or anyone in the household is over 70, pregnant or has a long term health condition, our engineers will:

• Make prior arrangements to avoid face to face contact with customers
• Wear protective clothing including gloves, face mask, coveralls, eye protection and foot covers as a precaution
• Ask the customer if they are comfortable wearing a face mask during our visit
• Ask that the people in the property stay in a separate room from the engineer
• Ask the customer to open the windows in the room where the engineer will be working
• Once our engineer has finished their work and leaves, they will remove their protective clothing and dispose of them safely and then thoroughly wash their hands before going to the next property

Working outside

If you see our engineers working in the street, please be assured that we have extra safety measures in place to enable safe working and our colleagues are fully briefed on the precautions they need to take.

Our engineers will follow UK government health and safety advice and adhere to safe hygiene practices, wear gloves and practise social distancing wherever possible.

Where possible, they will also work in fixed teams, to reduce the number of people that each colleague has contact with, and work side by side, rather than face to face, where they can.

Please ensure that you keep a safe two-metre distance from our work sites while we’re carrying out our essential work.

To learn more about how we’re maintaining essential services during the Covid-19 outbreak, watch our short animation here.

Working in vehicles

Our engineers will travel separately wherever possible and work in fixed teams to reduce the number of people that each colleague has contact with, where they can.

Please be assured that we have extra safety measures in place to protect our colleagues and our engineers are following safe hygiene practices including hand washing, cleaning areas that are frequently touched, using gloves when refuelling vehicles and ensuring vehicles are well ventilated.

Working in the office

The majority of our office-based colleagues are continuing to work from home, but please be assured that this won’t affect our service.

Non-essential business travel has been suspended and face to face meetings and events have been replaced with video calls and webinars which is safer for our colleagues and kinder to the environment too.

For those colleagues that do need to work from the office, we have redesigned our office and depot spaces to ensure that social distancing can be maintained.

We have also introduced new measures to ensure safe hygiene practices and increased the frequency of professional cleaning across all of our locations, which are risk-assessed as Covid secure in line with government guidance. 

We’re working in partnership with other energy networks, Ofgem and the Government so we are as prepared as we can be. You can find out more about what energy networks are doing to keep customers and colleagues safe and how we’ll be keeping your energy flowing during coronavirus here.

What are you doing to support your most vulnerable customers?

The safety and wellbeing of our customers is of the upmost importance to us; in particular those that are most in need.

Our colleagues will take every precaution to keep customers safe during our work including following UK government health and safety advice and wearing protective clothing when working in the home of a customer who is quarantining, is self-isolating due to someone else in the household showing symptoms, or anyone in the household who is at high risk due to being over 70, pregnant or has a long term health condition.

If you’re an ‘at risk’ person who has received a letter from the NHS advising you to take additional measures to protect yourself from COVID-19, then you should consider signing up for the Priority Services Register. This provides free additional services to customers in vulnerable circumstances if there is a power cut or you lose your gas supply unexpectedly. You can find out more about the Register by contacting your energy supplier, local electricity or gas distributor. Find out more here

Are you still carrying out gas connections work and meter moves?

Our Connections works are continuing and being carried out under UK government guidance for safe distance working, unless any customers in the household are isolating or have Covid symptoms.

Every project will be subject to a full risk assessment before work begins.

You can apply for a new gas connection on our website or by contacting the Gas Connections Team at gasconnections@northerngas.co.uk

Will you still come out to gas escapes or suspected carbon monoxide?

Yes.  We will ensure we are able to provide this service safely to our customers.  We want to assure customers that we will attend any gas escape and that we will make it safe, whether a person in that home has the coronavirus or not.  Obviously, safety precautions will be taken to ensure our colleagues do not catch or spread the virus.

What do I do if I need to contact Northern Gas Networks?

While the majority of the team are now working from home, you will be able to contact our Customer Care Team as usual from Monday – Friday between 8.30am and 6.30pm by calling 0800 040 7766, option 3. At all other times you can get in touch by emailing your details to customercare@northerngas.co.uk or via Twitter @NGNgas or Facebook/northerngasnetworks and we will get back to you.

If you need to contact our Connections team, please send an email with your details to gasconnections@northerngas.co.uk or call the team on on 0800 040 7766, option 2.

If you smell gas, suspect carbon dioxide or experience low gas pressure, call the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999, immediately. Please let the call operator know if you are also experiencing any symptoms of the coronavirus so that our engineers can prepare accordingly.

Thank you for your continued support and cooperation. Working together we will make sure that we stay safe and continue to provide you with the best possible service.

Working Safely During coronavirus

Our Covid Secure Promise

• We will carry out a full risk assessment of all of our work sites before starting work and share the results with the people who work there.
• We are following cleaning, handwashing and hygiene procedures in line with Government guidance.
• We will practice social distancing, staying two metres apart from another person wherever possible
• Where people can’t work two metres apart, we have extra safety precautions in place to manage any risk, including side by side working.
• Our engineers will wear personal protective clothing including face coverings and gloves.
• If you are shielding on NHS advice, self-isolating due to someone in the household showing. symptoms, if anyone is over 70, pregnant or has a long-term health condition, we will avoid face to face contact and wear additional PPE including coveralls, eye protection and foot protection as a precaution. 
  
• When working inside your home we will ask you to open doors and windows to ensure good ventilation, and stay in a separate room to our engineer.
• We will also ask you and anyone else in the property if you are comfortable wearing a face mask during our engineer’s visit.