Museum Update: Moving to Step 4 of the Government’s Roadmap

With the Government announcement that we will be moving to Step 4 on Mon 19 July we have considered how best to adapt our Museum offer and operations to keep our Team and visitors safe as we go into the Summer.

To that end the following principles will guide us:

• We want visitors and the Team to feel safe and comfortable onsite
• There will be a mixture of attitudes concerning the removal of restrictions and we need to be aware of this and use a blended approach ​
• Until Test and Trace guidelines change (16/8) we need to avoid any reports of infection for reputational and staffing reasons ​
• We will use the Summer to consider Team and visitor behaviour (including online booking vs walk ups etc) to consider any more permanent changes to carry through into the Autumn​
• Therefore we will follow an approach which strongly recommends to visitors to take mitigations; the Team must continue to follow current Step 3 advice until at least 16/8 to reduce business risk of staff being contacted by Test and Trace and/or catching Covid

We will increase visitors numbers onsite from next week and encourage them to still book in advance and continue to distance and follow the one way routes onsite. Sanitiser stations and QR codes will remain in place, and we will update building signs to recommend one family at a time for the safety of all visitors and staff. Face coverings will be optional but also recommended and one way routes will continue through buildings.

In the coming weeks our buses will start to run again, with visitors on-board, in the afternoons and all Enterprise units and shows in the School and Cinema will increase their capacity to circa 75%

As a Team we need to continue to follow the guidelines we are currently all doing a good job of responding to, including keeping socially distanced from our colleagues and visitors and sticking to our set rest areas. Where you cannot maintain a 2m distance from a colleague face coverings still need to be worn for everyone’s safety (unless you are exempt)  and to avoid any close contact incidents. This will be reviewed as we approach 16 August and the rules on Test and Trace change but while there remains a heightened risk of people being contacted to isolate it is business critical that we stick to our current rules. In the coming week we will ask you to respond to an anonymous survey regarding vaccination rates among the staff (now we are 2 months further along since our May survey) so we can better understand what the 16 August changes mean for us.

Further information about how these changes will impact specific teams will be communicated in appropriate briefings.

A huge thank you again to everyone and the way we have all changed how we work and engage with each other and visitors so we can stay safe and open.

Please note all of these changes are from Monday 19 July and do not come into effect until after 1940s Weekend.