Case study: Supporting businesses to provide COVID-safe environments

​The NSW Minister for Health issued a number of orders from 16 March 2020 that placed increasingly tight restrictions on public gatherings. By 26 March, most public premises in NSW were closed, including cafes and restaurants, pubs and clubs, sports facilities, cinemas and theatres. Places of worship were also closed to the public, except to allow for small weddings and funerals.

A gradual reopening of public premises began in July 2020. To reduce the risk of this reopening, the NSW Government required each business to develop a COVID-19 Safety Plan that addressed matters in a checklist approved by the Chief Health Officer. The checklists were created by NSW Health and covered the key areas of excluding people who were unwell with COVID symptoms, promoting good hygiene and maintaining physical distance. Specific checklists were developed for many categories of business or activity. Due to the speed of the rollout of these checklists, there was limited community engagement in the development of the initial versions. This sometimes led to industry concerns about the feasibility of the requirements. However, relationships with relevant government and industry stakeholders soon developed, improving consultation and implementation.

Initially, only Environmental Health Officers of NSW Health were authorised to enforce compliance with public health orders. This was a small workforce and so authorisation was rapidly rolled out to officers of the NSW Food Authority, SafeWork NSW and Liquor and Gaming NSW. As well as increasing the size of the workforce available to support businesses, this approach meant that agencies were engaging with stakeholders with whom they already had a relationship. An overarching interagency committee was established to coordinate compliance activities and to provide feedback to NSW Health on the implementation of the checklists.

Overall, the approach was a success, with the large majority of businesses able to demonstrate that they had a COVID-19 Safety Plan that they were implementing effectively.