Staff at NHS Tayside claim they do not feel safe going into work and have had colleagues quit their jobs over not been allowed to work from home.
Last week the Tele reported on IT staff at the health board not being allowed to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic as they are classed as key workers.
However, since then more non-patient-facing members of staff have got in touch to raise similar concerns about having to go into their offices every day.
This is despite neighbouring health boards, such as NHS Fife, encouraging its staff to work from home wherever possible.
One who works as an administrative assistant said: “It has been horrible.
“[These] concerns are not fresh and it is senior admin management making decisions.
“The clinical team I provide service to have wholly supported and recommended we work from home and kindly provided us with the facilities to do so.
“I have worked from home for four days but only through contact tracing as an immediate colleague was confirmed positive for Covid-19 after an outbreak on our ‘green zone’ ward.
“Our line managers have been absolutely useless and citing the ‘well, we are here’ reasoning for not keeping staff safe.
https://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/fp/nhs-staff-home-working/
“This has caused a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety.
“I know staff who have left their roles because of a lack of support during this.”
Another who works in finance said: “We are not patient-facing, we can work from home and most of us do want to work from home.
“We do not feel safe going into work at all.
“The rest of NHS Scotland admin staff are working from home and I have written to the Scottish Government twice about this to no avail.
“I have friends in NHS Fife who are working from home doing the same job that I do without any problems at all and they feel safe.
“We are at risk every day that we have to go into our workplace.
“I feel we should be given the choice.
“Some people cannot work from home and some don’t want to, but for the majority that do then we should be allowed.
“We are furious at this but can’t do anything about it.
“Some people assume we have been vaccinated but we have not and we have not heard of plans to vaccinate us in the near future.”
Last week George Doherty, director of workforce at NHS Tayside, said: “From the outset of the pandemic, NHS Tayside staff have been classed as key workers in the response to Covid-19.
“This is because every member of our team has a critical role to play during the outbreak.
“Some staff may feel that their role is not currently essential, however, the Covid-19 demands on our health services are changing and increasing every day in this second peak.
“The continuation of patient care and services in our hospitals and communities is the most important element of our response at this time.
“Therefore, in order for us to continue to deliver patient-facing care and services, there is a critical requirement for us to rapidly deploy members of staff to support the frontline.
“In addition, our IT infrastructure does not allow for all non-patient-facing staff to work remotely so we must prioritise remote access – and therefore home working – to ensure we can provide critical services.”
And Linda Douglas, director of workforce at NHS Fife, said: “In line with the national Covid-19 control measures in place, all NHS Fife staff who can work from home have been asked to do so.
“These arrangements have been in place for a number of months and we are doing all we can to support staff to work as flexibly as possible in these challenging circumstances.”
This article originally appeared on the Evening Telegraph website. For more information, read about our new combined website.