The Labour Party is today (Thursday) calling for routine
testing of all staff in the NHS and social care sectors to help
minimise transmission of Covid-19.
, Labour’s Shadow
Health and Social Care Secretary, is
calling for testing to expanded beyond symptomatic carriers, so
that all staff are regularly tested once a week.
The Department of Health and Social Care said on the
4th April that it would be testing critical key
workers regularly once widespread testing became available. And
in a letter dated 29th April, NHS
England confirmed that it would be extending regular testing to
asymptomatic staff. Despite this, universal staff testing has yet
to be implemented.
Labour’s call comes as a study suggested that a fifth of
coronavirus infections among hospital patients and almost nine in
10 infections among healthcare workers may have been caught in
hospital.
The Government’s current testing strategy involves testing
NHS workers who have symptoms of the virus. Some trusts are
already doing routine staff testing, but it is not currently not
required across the board.
A recent study from Imperial suggested that weekly
testing of healthcare workers is “estimated to reduce their
contribution to transmission by 25-33 per cent, on top of
reductions achieved by self-isolation following symptoms”.
Similarly, a paper in the New England Journal of
Medicine warns that symptoms-based screening alone in
nursing homes failed to detect large numbers of infectious cases.
It recommends that “testing to include asymptomatic persons
residing or working in skilled nursing facilities needs to be
implemented now”.
Another study at Barts Health NHS Trust found
that at the height of Covid-19 in the community at the end of
March, around 7 per cent of asymptomatic healthcare workers
tested positive, falling to around 1 per cent by the end of
April.
, commenting on the
calls, said:
“Regular testing of all NHS staff must now be an urgent
priority. Weekly testing of all healthcare workers reduces the
spread of the virus and helps protect NHS staff and
patients.”
“Eventually resetting the NHS to continue treating covid
and non-covid patients is going to have to take priority. This
should include putting in place infection control measures to
make sure patients can continue to safely receive their care, and
routine testing of all staff should be a part of this.”
Ends
Notes to Editors
· Letter
from NHS England 29th April https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/04/second-phase-of-nhs-response-to-covid-19-letter-to-chief-execs-29-april-2020.pdf
· Department
of Health and Social Care statement on April
4 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-scaling-up-testing-programmes/coronavirus-covid-19-scaling-up-our-testing-programmes
· Study
from Imperial https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/197074/weekly-covid-19-testing-healthcare-care-home/
· Paper
from New England Journal of Medicine https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2009758
· Study
at Barts Health NHS Trust https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(20)31100-4.pdf
