NHS employee difficulty with covid testing

[Manxman in exile]

21 minutes ago, honeybee13 said:

Hi. I suppose it depends on which of the Covid tests her employer wants your friend to have.

 

Who are the infection prevention team please?

 

HB

 

 

 

I suspect  that linzie means the Infection Control team at her friend's employer - a NHS trust from the thread title.  (Don't worry HB - you can't be expected to guess the right answer if the OP won't tell you!  Not everybody would know what an Infection control team was).

 

linzie - I'm sure your friend's employer can dictate precisely whatever test will satisfy them and that she has no "right" to a home test.  Her employer is, after all, a NHS trust, and I think they will probably know what they are doing.

 

Also, as a back-sufferer myself and a former NHS manager (whose job was once to monitor levels of staff sickness), I'm absolutely astounded that her physio has suggested 12 days(!) of bed rest.  The current advice as I understand it (unless you have a severe medical issue) is to have no more than two or three days bed rest and to try to resume normal activity ASAP.  If the physio thinks your friend won't be able to attend a testing appointment in 12 days time, I'm surprised they haven't referred them for urgent investigation (eg MRI).

 

So no, I don't think your friend can insist on being tested at home.  Best all round to do what their NHS employer tells them.

[Manxman in exile]

I have no idea if there are more than one test or not - but it's quite possible that there are, and it's quite possible that results come back within different timescales.

 

Why doesn't your friend simply call the Infection Control (or whatever) Department at her employing trust and explain her concerns?  If your friend is already self-isolating because they've been in contact with someone who is covid positive, I'm not sure what their particular worry is, unless your friend (or someone they live with) is shielding or is otherwise vulnerable?

 

Unless there is good reason for your friend's concern, I think their employer may well be justified in concluding that their position on this is unreasonable.  After all, is it reasonable to refuse being tested in your own home by a professional nurse who is trained in infection control, and infection control is basically all that his or her job is about (even in non-Covid times)?  I'm sure healthcare staff are amongst the most regularly tested people in the country and I'd have thought you were no more likely to be infected by an NHS nurse than by some random person you met shopping.

 

Does the nurse actually even have to come into your friend's home?  Can't it be done at the front door without breaching social distancing rules?  eg  Visiting nurse rings door bell, puts test kit on doorstep and steps back 2m+.  Friend opens door, picks up kit and self-administers test.  Returns completed test to doorstep, retreats and closes door, nurse advances and picks up kit.  Simples!  My wife had to have an operation in August and had to visit a test centre three days prior to admission.  She basically went through the same process I've just described except it was in her car and through the car window. I can't believe a NHS Infection Control Dept won't have developed a similarly safe protocol for doing this.

 

I don't know, but it is quite possible that if you are not showing symptoms you should not be getting tested at a test centre.  There was a lot of publicity a couple of months ago about people who were not showing symptoms overwhelming test centres and blocking the testing of people who were showing symptoms.

 

Also, as your friend is a NHS employee, her employer trust may consider that it owes a duty of care to its patients to ensure that the right person is being tested, a duty which they might feel cannot be fulfilled with a home test.

 

What I've said above is just what seems like common sense to me.  I'm not an expert in employment law and it might well be that your friend is within their rights to refuse to be tested at home.  But I doubt that that would be conducive to a longer term good relationship with their employer.

 

Just tell your friend to ring up infection control and talk to them.  I worked as a manager in the NHS for 25 years and I'd be among the first to agree that the NHS is at the centre of a lot of cockups, but most of them could be avoided if people simply talked to each other.

[Manxman in exile]

OK.  This site suggests that you can't get a "free" test done at a test centre unless you have symptoms.  I suspect that as your friend's hospital can do the test themselves, they will be reluctant to pay for anybody else to do it

 

https://www.gov.uk/get-coronavirus-test

 

However, you'll notice a section headed "If you're going into hospital".  Why doesn't your friend ask if she can use the same test process as for people about to be admitted to hospital?

 

As I say unless he/she talks to their employing trust about the available options they won't resolve this.  And no matter what they ask for they may still have to end up with a nurse testing them in their home  (EDIT:  And run the risk of being labelled "awkward")

Edited November 12, 2020 by Manxman in exile

[Manxman in exile]

Now that's what I call a comprehensive reply.