We must not make the same lockdown mistakes again, warns Sheffield business leader

As a financial services company, we are obligated both from a good business practice and a regulatory point of view to prepare risk assessment scenarios.

It now is a regular discipline that protects our business but more importantly secures continuity of customer care.

Similarly we have to anticipate and plan more protection for the elderly and vulnerable in our midst, as well as maintaining the continuity of education.

The psychological trauma they will suffer from more severe restrictions cannot be underestimated.

The crisis in our care homes must not be repeated, by adequate provision of personal protective equipment and comprehensive access to test-and-trace facilities .

Too many people found difficulty in booking these tests and this needs to be addressed while looking at the feasibility of walk-in centres also.

A speedy turnaround of results has obvious benefits to both isolate quickly sufferers and free those with negative results.

We, of course, should keep children at school as long as we can safely do it, but resource the provision of remote devices as a contingency if schooling has to be done at home.

I am delighted there is a local initiative to provide more of these by recycling redundant ones from local businesses – any business who can donate unused devices for our schoolchildren can contact [email protected]

As well as providing much needed continuity of education, the provision of such technology will better prepare our youngsters for the ever-changing digital age.

The threats to jobs and local economy have to be anticipated and support measures put in place in advance of expected restrictions not retrospectively .

We have a clue to what could happen in a second lockdown from the trauma of the first lockdown, so the Government should not be caught unaware or unresponsive and there is no excuse for not responding .

The NHS has to be given all the resources to respond to both Covid-19 cases as well as the growing waiting lists of serious conditions that will become more serious if not diagnosed and treated.

Because of those consequences, the messages could not more stark.

So those who continue to ignore social distancing, hand hygiene and wearing masks should reflect their freedoms come at the price of more jobs lost, schooling compromised, serious illnesses not treated and, sadly, more lives lost.

The mistakes made by a Government still learning to cope with pandemic is no excuse for our indiscipline.

Not carrying out recommended measures should become as socially unacceptable as smoking in a public place.

If we play our part then we can legitimately hold the authorities to do what only they can do, and hopefully save Christmas but more importantly more lives being lost.

We applauded the NHS in the first phase. We can better that deserved appreciation by protecting them and others by our discipline to avoid even greater pressure on them this winter.