Medical supplier Vygon says it plans to reopen its office fully by mid-September.

The company supplies equipment to NHS hospitals across the UK and has been operating through the pandemic. 

Office staff have been working from home but employees in the warehouse at the former Motorola building have been turning up for shifts for the duration. 

Now those working from home are being asked to return to the building. 

Katie Kingston, head of communications at the company, explained the new way of working would include a rotating shift pattern and masks in communal areas.

She said: “People are starting to go back on an ad-hoc basis between now and September.

“Everyone’s going through orientation so that they understand the new processes and systems we’ve got in place – one-way systems and equipment that has to be worn and where it has to be worn. 

“In communal areas we expect people to wear masks. 

“We’ve placed hand sanitisers around and put up signs making it clear what a two-metre distance is.”

And when it comes to employees having worries about returning to the office, Katie believes everyone is ready to come back. 

She added: “We’ve been very lucky that we haven’t really had anybody who’s expressed they don’t want to come back. 

“Obviously any situations that arise, we will handle on a case-by-case basis but the team that’s been working on this are more than comfortable that we have everything in place that we need to so that people are as safe as they can be. 

“We’re very fortunate that we’ve got a lot of space. Desks are very well spread out and everybody is two metres apart. 

“People that haven’t had their work set up at home have already gone back to the office, so we’ve been flexible around peoples needs.”

The company has been working on plans for a second lockdown, locally or nationally, as well as any outbreaks at the site.

“If another lockdown comes in we’ll revert back to our plans.” Katie said.

The majority of people can work from home but obviously the people in our warehouse can’t. 

“We’ve been very careful to protect that area of the business and it’s almost operating as if it’s a separate business to the rest of us. 

“We’ve been in touch with the local director of public health to ask questions and we’d respond to whatever needs to be done. 

“Being a supplier to the NHS, we need to make sure we can still get critical product out to them. 

“We’ll need to work for everyone to make sure there are no issues there.”