Government to prioritise coronavirus tests for care home staff

The government has revealed it is to prioritise coronavirus testing for care home and NHS staff and next on the list will be school pupils and their parents.

Health and social care secretary, Matt Hancock told MPs, staff in care homes and hospitals will be first in line, as he admitted the “operational challenges” around testing could take weeks to fix. He claims 100,000 tests have been prioritised for social care, which is a third of the daily total.

Mr Hancock said: “The top priority is and always has been acute clinical care. The next priority is social care, where we’re now sending over 100,000 tests a day because we’ve all seen the risks this virus poses in care homes.”

His announcement came amid reports of people being offered tests hundreds of miles away from where they live.

In care homes it seems they are being offered the tests but then are having to face huge delays waiting for the results.

Care home staff told carehome.co.uk: "We are getting weekly tests and up to two weeks ago these were coming back in 48 hours, they are now taking seven days."

Another care home worker said: “It’s taking five days for the test to come back, then it’s test time again.”

A care assistant told carehome.co.uk that she believes the backlog in testing is causing coronavirus to spread again. “I work in a care home. Staff are tested every Tuesday for infection and residents are tested monthly. Great stuff but when test results are not back by the following week, it is a waste of time. This is a reason why the virus is spreading again,” she said.

Matt Hancock has blamed the backlog in testing on the British public for getting too many coronavirus tests.

Adam Gordon, Professor of Care of Older People at Nottingham University said: “This rise in infections happens as care home managers are losing faith in testing because of turnaround times. High rates of asymptomatic infections in residents mean care homes need next day results on regular testing. The system is failing them.”

Demand for testing seems to have risen since schools went back as parents are being told to keep their children off school if they have any coronavirus symptoms and get them tested.

Mr Hancock, speaking in the House of Commons on Tuesday, said: "Over the summer, when demand was low, we were able to meet all requirements for testing, whether priorities or not.

"But as demand has risen, so we are having to prioritise once again and I do not shirk from decisions about prioritisation. They are not always comfortable, but they are important."