Staff should stay at home for 14 days if someone in their household has symptoms of covid-19.
If other members of the household develop symptoms during the 14 days, then they must not leave the home for 7 days from when these symptoms started.
To reduce the risk of the spread of infection the government has introduce a number of social distancing measures.
For those who are under 70, have no underlying health conditions and remain well, they are advised to limit their social contact where possible. This includes using less public transport, working from home and considering not going to pubs, restaurants theatres and bars.
For those who are over 70, have an underlying health condition or are pregnant, they are advised to limit face-to-face interactions to family and friends if possible and to avoid public transport and going to pubs, restaurants, theatres and bars.
Those who display symptoms of covid-19 do not need to call the NHS to go into self-isolation. If these symptoms continue or worsen after seven days, then contact NHS 111 online. Those without access to the internet should call NHS 111.
Those in self-isolation should also refer to the government’s stay at home guidance.
The previous government advice regarding high risk areas/countries was withdrawn on 13 March 2020 and has been superseded by the above advice.
Employees who are recommended to self-isolate are entitled to sick leave but not necessarily sick pay, though you may well want to provide this anyway as a matter of being a good employer.
If employees are required to self-isolate due to covid-19 or displaying a high temperature or a new continuous cough then they would qualify for statutory sick pay subject to meeting eligibility requirements.
Employees are entitled to time off to care for a dependent. There is no statutory right to pay for this time off, but your organisation may already have a policy on this. You may want to consider revisiting this policy for the covid-19 situation.
Further advice on employee sick leave and sick pay entitlements can be found on the Acas website.