Arrangements for swabbing care home staff/residents

Commisceo have been commissioned to take referrals from care homes for the swabbing of patients and staff across mid and south Essex. For information:

1. In the event of the first outbreak – which is considered to be a symptomatic resident or member of staff, the care home must follow their usual process of contacting the Health Protection Team for outbreak advice. The swabbing is commissioned from Commiseo and will be overseen by PHE – this is normal outbreak process.
2. In the event of further outbreaks commiseo have been commissioned to attend care homes and swab patients/staff as required – details outline below:

Process

Care homes will need to email referral/s to the following email account: [email protected]. They prefer to take emails but the home can also call for advice on 07953 182022.
They need to include the following information:

1. Name of the Home and Postcode
2. Contact details of the person to liaise with
3. Names/s
4. DOB/s
5. NHS Numbers/s

The homes should only notify Comisceo directly if they have already declared an outbreak to PHE. So, additional information required is the date they notified PHE and the number of residents already swabbed.

If this is the first case(s) they should contact PHE in the normal way. Also, please note this is a developing strategy and may change.