Testing for health and care staff

Staff swabbing (PCR Testing) for COVID-19

Staff swabbing (PCR Testing) for COVID-19 continues to be offered for NHS employees (Acute, Mental Health, Community/Hospice, Primary Care, CCGs) at the following three locations:

• Orsett Hospital – Orsett
• Broomfield Hospital – Chelmsford
• Nazareth House – Southend

Staff members, or members of their household with symptoms of COVID-19 can be offered the opportunity to be tested. This includes members of your household who have symptoms of COVID-19.

For referrals of staff/family members: contact your line manager to arrange a test for you or your household family members.

Please note: Staff outside of the NHS should use the national testing services available which include national sites, mobile testing units (more information below) and home delivery.

Further details can be found on the gov.uk website.

About the testing programme

The mid testing programme available across mid and south Essex means that staff members, or members of their household with symptoms of COVID-19 can be offered the opportunity to be tested.

Locally, across mid and south Essex, testing is being offered to other essential (clinical and non-clinical) staff involved in caring for our population, including those working in primary care, community and mental health services, hospices, local authorities, care homes, domiciliary care and volunteers.

John Swanson, Infection Prevention and Control nurse, explains the process

Tests will be offered, by appointment only, at three locations across mid and south Essex.

Anthony McKeever, Interim Joint Accountable Officer for Mid and South Essex NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups said: “We know that staff in front-line roles are working incredibly hard and are committed to the care of their patients and residents. We hope that by offering a swift testing service to staff in essential roles, they will be able to get back to work as quickly as possible, ensuring both their safety and that of the people they are working to support.”

Lateral Flow Device (LFD) staff self-testing for COVID-19

The NHS announced it would be rolling out asymptomatic testing of all patient-facing NHS staff. The below leaflet has been developed to help give an overview of the LFD and how it works.

COVID-19 test kits for General Practice

From 4 November, NHS Test and Trace is making Covid swab testing available to General Practices in England. The service will be available to all practices on a voluntary, opt in basis and swabs are intended to be self-administered as far as possible. This will be a supplementary option for practices and does not replace any of the existing routes to access testing. Members of the public will continue to be directed to drive through, walk in and home testing services.

Who these tests are for

These tests can offered to:

• Patients who present with symptoms in General Practice settings. GPs can use their discretion to offer the swabs where they deem it to be clinically appropriate in order to streamline patient care and/or improve access to testing for patients who would otherwise be unlikely to get a test via the primary testing routes. For example, due to barriers around language, disability or digital inclusion;
• Symptomatic GPs, practice staff and their symptomatic household members.

More information can be found on the GOV.uk website.

Care home testing

Care homes 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:

• Name of the Home and Post Code
• Contact details of the person to liaise with
• Names/s
• DOB/s
• NHS Numbers/s

The homes should only notify Commisceo 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.

Flowchart: Additional swabbing of residents in social care settings

Home delivery test kits

People who meet the eligibility criteria for testing but cannot visit a national test centre or mobile test unit in person may apply for a home testing kit. This must be booked in the same way as the other tests, by applying at gov.uk

Further information about eligibility and to book visit www.gov.uk/apply-coronavirus-test

National COVID-19 testing sites in Essex

People who meet the Government criteria for testing can book an appointment via the gov.uk website at one of the two national testing centres in the area – Stansted and Ipswich.

119 call centre

By calling the 119 call centre, members of the public who don’t have online access can book a coronavirus swab test and ask any questions relating to having a test and getting results.

Mobile COVID-19 testing sites

Mobile testing sites have also been arranged for various locations across Essex and are run by the Ministry of Defence. These are also by appointment only by booking via the gov.uk website and for those who meet the criteria for testing.

The locations of the sites will change each week. Keep checking this website for the latest sites across Essex. There will be an option to choose these sites when booking, if appointments are still available for the day you choose.

The mobile testing units will run between 10.30am and 4pm each day they are open.

The locations for mobile testing units for the week commencing 6 September 2021 are: