Monthly Archives: April 2020

The current COVID-19 pandemic situation is having an unprecedented effect on our work and personal lives. The government initiated social distancing and national lockdown are aimed to protect our physical health, however it is also essential to consider mental health and wellbeing in the current climate.

JCA values the health and wellbeing of all our employees and recognises that balancing everyday life together with the requirements of work and home can create pressure for everyone. We aim to establish a positive health and wellbeing culture that includes awareness, understanding, effective processes and positive behaviour by employees at all levels.

Wellbeing at the core

We fully recognise that mental and physical health and wellbeing are equally important and that work can have a potential impact on both. Therefore, we have an employee wellbeing policy that sets out and manages our obligations to maintain the mental health and wellbeing of our staff. It covers JCA’s commitment to employee health, the responsibilities of managers and others for maintaining psychological health, health promotion initiatives, communicating and training on health issues, the range of support available for the maintenance of mental health, and organisational commitment to handling individual issues.

Trained to help

We take a “we’re in this together” approach – everyone has their part to play in ensuring that support can be accessed as needed, with dedicated support roles available. We have mental aid first aiders who are trained in mental health awareness and can support mental ill health and offer sign posted support.

Talking about mental health at work can be daunting: people may worry about how they will be treated and how their colleagues will react. We therefore invited JCA employees across the business to volunteer to become Health and Wellbeing Champions. Our Champions help implement and support JCA’s wellbeing and mental health programme through raising awareness of wellbeing, promoting healthy lifestyles and positive mental health. Every Champion attended an internationally recognised training course ‘Mental Health Champions’, accredited by Mental Health First Aid (MHFA).

Health and Wellbeing Champions can support workplace culture and make a difference to the lives of work colleagues, working with the organisation to make mental health a normal topic of conversation, dispelling myths and providing another avenue for people to seek support.

A number of our senior managers and line managers have also attended ‘Line Manager Mental Health Awareness Training’ run by Mind, with further sessions to be arranged later this year.  This training aims to provide line managers with a better understanding of mental health difficulties and the confidence to  manage mental health in the workplace, which promotes wellbeing and understanding across the teams and reduces perceived stigma when discussing mental health issues.

External programmes

As part of our commitment to health and wellbeing of our staff, we have implemented an Employee Assistance Programme, delivered by an independent external organisation, which provides confidential support and guidance relating to personal issues via telephone and online advice, support and counselling services. The services include help with home and work life, physical and emotional health, wellbeing resources, self-help programmes, webinars and other.

RoSPA Health at Work

Our teams work hard on continually developing and implementing processes and procedures for the JCA Health and Wellbeing programme by creating innovative and exciting activities for all staff, balanced and educational training and providing continued support to all staff members who may feel they need it.

Our efforts do not go unnoticed. In 2019, we were awarded a major award – the RoSPA Health at Work Award. This major trophy is presented to businesses demonstrating the best management of Health at Work and a true and obvious commitment to the welfare of all the staff.  The submission for this extremely prestigious award consisted of JCA having to evidence a number of health and safety areas, including ‘Wellness at work’ (particularly mental health), attendance management and staff rehabilitation.

Mind UK

This year, we sealed our commitment to raising awareness on mental health and wellbeing by choosing the wonderful Mind UK as our national charity for 2020. Mind UK provides advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem. The organisation campaigns to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding of the issues that those with mental illnesses deal with.

Support your colleagues

Ensure that you communicate with your colleagues or teams often and if you are a line manager, provide updates regularly to your teams. If your company does not run its own wellbeing programmes, Mind UK has published guidance on coronavirus and wellbeing which you may find useful.

The JCA design team is part of the professional team assigned to designing and creating the new critical care (ICU) facility at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

JCA worked extensively and thoroughly engaged with the management team at the Trust, together with the clinicians and design team, with a view to deliver a new ‘class leading’ expanded adult (ICU) intensive care unit.

This is a major and exciting development within the hospital that offers patients, patient families and clinicians new state-of-the-art facilities for a critical care environment.

These benefits include but are not limited to the following:

• Maximising daylight for the patients with extensive views of the city using full height thermal comfort glazing
• Large bed spaces with carefully considered ceiling mounted articulated arms and monitoring facilities
• Glass will replace curtains to improve noise reduction and privacy
• Improved relative facilities
• Upgraded burns unit environmental systems
• Centralised 24 hours critical care engineering systems offering flexible, maintainable systems with minimal maintenance impact in patient areas

JCA overcame complex engineering challenges to design a solution to facilitate upgraded central engineering upgrades whilst ensuring there is no impact to the usual day to day running of the hospital during the construction works and to provide a phased handover and sectional completion of areas. The engineering specified throughout the scheme uses modern, energy efficient and dynamic controlled environmental and lighting management systems.

David Butcher, Director of Estates and Facilities at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Trust, said: “This project is a complex major scheme in a central London hospital that needed engineering design capability of the highest standard with a team capable of working closely with clinicians to provide a design that can be built in a properly planned and methodical manner with minimal impact to the usual day to day running of the hospital.”

Phase 1 of the project is completed, handed over to the client and currently in use.

JCA is pleased to announce that we have achieved Gold in the internationally-renowned RoSPA Health and Safety Awards 2020.

The winning of the RoSPA Gold Award for the third consecutive year is a testament to the great culture and commitment that JCA has an organisation towards health and safety.

In 2019 JCA was also awarded the coveted RoSPA Health at Work Award, a specialist major trophy presented to entrants demonstrating the best management of Health at Work and a true and obvious dedication to the welfare of all the staff.

Safety on sites

Our culture of safety first ensures that the highest standards of safety are adopted on all sites to protect our teams, clients, subcontractors and the general public from risk and harm.

At JCA we have a proactive approach to safety inspections which are carried out by all management levels to continually enhance the safety culture within the business. All our subcontractors are vetted through Alcamus SafeContractor scheme to demonstrate commitment to sustainable and ethical practices.

Employee training and wellbeing

At JCA we value the health and wellbeing of all our employees and we want to provide them with the best possible working environment.

Our Core Health & Safety Training is licenced by IOSH and we are on the IOSH data base of approved training providers. We ensure all personnel are continually up to date with latest information available.

We also support and welcome work experience students to provide them with a valuable insight into ‘work within a working environment’.

As part of our continued development of JCA’s culture towards health and wellbeing in the workplace, we invited JCA employees across the business to volunteer to become Health and Wellbeing (HWB) Champions. The Champions help implement and support wellbeing and mental health as well as the ongoing programme at JCA, through raising awareness of wellbeing, promoting healthy lifestyles and positive mental health. We also have trained Mental Health First Aiders and use external providers for specialist referrals.

JCA will be officially presented with the RoSPA Gold Award during the official RoSPA Awards Presentation in London on Tuesday, September 8.

To find out more about how we manage our health and safety, quality and environment, visit our HSQE page or get in touch by emailing us at info@jca.co.uk