NHS employee difficulty with covid testing

[BazzaS]

Home tests are meant for symptomatic patients, and are tested in Pillar 2 : the 'Lighthouse Labs" and private labs backing them up.

 

NHS staff tests (and tests done for patients by the NHS hospitals) are tested in Pillar 1.

 

You'd have hoped the hospitals can access the Pillar 2 test results : but they can't.

The Pillar 1 results get sent to Public Health England by the hospitals, the Pillar 2 data similarly gets sent to PHE, the PIllar 2 data doesn't go to the hospitals, (and I'm led to believe the hospitals also don't get to know what test platform is being used in the Pillar 2 labs, nor the test sensitivity and specificity data for the Pillar2  lab). Thus it is unsurprising that the hospital don't want a 'home test' done .... they wont be able to access the result, and don't know the test sensitivity / specificity for testing a non-symptomatic patient, so even if they could access the result, they cant fully interpret it to the extent they could do for a test done in their own lab / the lab they send samples to.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-testing-data-methodology/covid-19-testing-data-methodology-note

 

I concur with ManxmanInExile: talking to the infection prevention / control team at the employing NHS Trust is a good way forward. If the non-infection but health related issues (such as the bad back) are complicating things, it may be that speaking to the Trust's Occupational Health team and getting them to liase with infection prevention may be the best way forward.

Edited November 12, 2020 by BazzaS