Staying home and safe is the contribution everyone can make to support the effort in tackling the spread of coronavirus. SSEN's critical workers are in communities repairing faults, maintaining critical infrastructure and supporting customers to stay at home.
Bryan Puszkar, SSEN's Customer Relationship Manager for Thames Valley and his team are supporting nearly one million customers in the region, ranging from vulnerable people with specific medical needs to parents with young children.
He said: "How I carry out my day-to-day role has changed dramatically in recent weeks, but ultimately the core value of supporting our communities, and vulnerable customers within them, has not.
"SSEN has invested in its critical network infrastructure to ensure that power cuts are rare, and when they do occur, short. I manage a team that stay engaged with the customers, while we address power cuts and faults, and we've quickly developed new ways to do this safety for both customers and our engineers and technicians.
"If it's an emergency and we need access a customer's home, we'll only do so if absolutely necessary, and if we can adhere to the strict guidelines of remaining a minimum of two metres apart. Our teams have the appropriate personal protection equipment and are taking all the necessary hygiene measures in line with Government advice.
"I've also been working with emergency partners through the Thames Valley Local Resilience Forum. They have set up community hubs in the area which we're working with, as well as responding quickly to requests for infrastructure critical to the Coronavirus response to be connected to the electricity network.
"There's a wealth of support groups across Thames Valley, both established and newly formed, and sharing details of theses with our customers, so they can access more help, whether it's for food or medicine delivery or advice on what local authorities are doing to help.
"Teams that can work from home are doing so, but equally many of our workers have to physically be at the poles, lines and wires that allows electricity to flow to our homes. Rest assured we're taking all the measures we can to stay safe and keep the lights on and the services running for our customers across the Thames Valley and all of our central southern England regions."
If you or someone in your family is vulnerable, has a disability, chronic illness, medical equipment that relies on electricity, blind or hard of hearing or living with children under the age of five, you should join our FREE Priority Service Register. SSEN is also now including any customers who arecategorised at 'high risk' and 'extremely high risk' of severe illness from coronavirus so they are now eligible to sign up for additional support. This includes those following government guidelines who have received a letter from the NHS to socially shield for a 12-week period.
In addition to those self-isolating or shielding for a 12-week period, customers are eligible for SSEN's Priority Services Register if they:
- Are deaf or hard of hearing
- Have a disability
- Live with children under five
- Are blind or partially sighted
- Have a chronic illness
- Use medical equipment/aid reliant on electricity
- Are over 60
It offers a dedicated 24 hour priority services phone number, priority updates during a power cut, enables you to nominate someone for us to contact on your behalf and provides information in the format you need, for example in a different language, Braille or audio CD and a security password to keep you safe.
SSEN produces its Priority Services Register leaflets in 11 different languages; all of which are also available to read and download from its website, by going to: www.ssen.co.uk/psr. The website will also translate every page to over 100 languages, and read 33 of them aloud; simply by clicking on the Accessibility 'triple A' button in the bottom left corner.
To find out more, please go to the Priority Services Register page on our website: www.ssen.co.uk/psr, where SSEN's multi-language PSR leaflets can also be accessed and downloaded.