Coronavirus outbreak

There has been an outbreak of Coronavirus/bird flu in China. This is a developing situation and it is being closely monitored.

The risk to the UK population has been assessed as low. Should this assessment change, the NHS is well prepared.

As with all mail handling and all other roles, good hand and personal hygiene should be maintained to minimise the risk of any infection of colds and flu which are very common at this time of year. Hands should always be washed before eating and any gloves worn for mail handling should be washed frequently.

Although the risk of infection is very low, while the situation is developing, disposable gloves can be made available to anyone handling large numbers of parcels or letters originating from this area of China who would like to wear them as an additional precaution.

Please speak to your manager if you would like access to disposable gloves.

We will continue to monitor the situation closely and will act on Public Health England advice, which is updated daily. We will provide further updates if the advice changes.