Shoe covers banned by North Lanarkshire Council over safety fears

North Lanarkshire Council has banned home support workers from wearing shoe covers over health and safety fears.

Last week during the height of Storm Diana a Netherton pensioner contacted the Times & Speaker to complain that his carpets were being ruined by home support workers dragging in filth from the street.

When he asked why they were not wearing shoe coverings he was told staff had received an email banning their use due to fears staff might slip while wearing them.

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The man, whose wife has several visits a day, said: “I worked as a council plasterer for years and we were always told to wear shoe covers. Not once do I ever remember anyone slipping while wearing them.

“The home support workers have been coming into the house to see my wife on multiple occasions every day for the last three months and there have been no problems.

“Suddenly though they stopped wearing shoe covers and were dragging all the filth in off the street across our clean carpets.

“I’m getting too old to clean the carpets all the time. They have to come up with a better edict than this which doesn’t disrespect people’s property.”

The council confirmed it had banned shoe covers.

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A spokesperson for North Lanarkshire Council said: “The safety and wellbeing of our services users and staff is always our priority.

“Where home support workers are required to carry out moving and manual handling duties to aid a service user, we must minimise the risk of the worker slipping which could risk their safety or that of the person they are helping.

“Under these circumstances, we have advised staff not to wear shoe covers to reduce that risk.”