NHS Test and Trace has made weekly COVID-19 testing available for all homecare workers in England and its now been It’s been a few months since staff at Nightingales Golden Care began their routine asymptomatic testing.
Testing on a Thursday morning each week, staff members return their self administered swabs via Royal Mail priority postboxes before being texted or emailed their results. And although, it can take a little while to get the hang of the procedure, it only takes a few minutes to complete.
Routine asymptomatic testing ensures that staff do not need to be displaying symptoms of a coronavirus infection to request a test. Decreasing the likelihood that symptomless infections will be transmitted unknowingly.
4 weeks worth of testing kits are distributed at a time, alongside their PPE supplies. Meaning they can perform the tests at their own convenience. And although tests only provide a ‘snapshot’ telling staff that they were not infected at the time the test was performed, they are able to identify staff members who need to stay home and isolate, therefore working alongside other practices such as social distancing, PPE and hygiene practices to reduce risk.
And regular testing can have psychological benefits as well as practical ones, as a recent staff survey has shown that weekly testing has made a large majority of the staff feel safer about working during the COVID-19 pandemic.’
