Workplace test expansion
9 March 2021
At the start of February I reported how The Hireman had acted quickly to put in place regular lateral flow testing of all personnel at its three London depots to check that they were free of the coronavirus.
The company was eligible because it had at least 50 employees. However, the Government has now announced that all businesses in England can sign up to the free workplace testing programme, regardless of size. But they need to register interest by 31 March.
Around one in three people with coronavirus don’t have symptoms, which means they could be spreading the virus in workplaces without knowing. As the earlier blog post described, rapid testing can detect cases in less than 30 minutes, so positive cases can isolate immediately, breaking chains of transmission.
The Government says that regular testing is a crucial part of its plan to gradually ease restrictions as part of the roadmap out of lockdown. The workplace programme will remain free until the end of June.
Guidance also says, however, that all those who can work from home should continue to do so.
An online portal has been launched for businesses to find out more about offering rapid workplace testing. Firms can also find their local test site online.
Neil Graham, MD of The Hireman, tells me that the lateral flow testing regime (which the blog reported on here) continues to work well.
“We continue to schedule all our staff for a weekly test at their local centre. It’s working fine and we haven’t had any more positive cases since the one early on [mentioned in the first story].
“However, I have a few frustrations with getting workplace test kits, which we are still to receive. We acted on this immediately when the limit was lowered from 250 employees to 50 about a month ago.
“I signed up but the reply email went into spam, which I suppose isn’t anyone’s fault but it’s happened to a couple of other business owners that I’ve talked to.
“And also, I had to fill out the mother of all forms,” says Neil. “I wasn’t prepared for questions like having to identify the percentage of people from different sectors of the economy that our staff would be coming into contact with!
“To cap it all you get timed out after 30 minutes. Anyway, I’m now waiting for another email with our unique organisation number that will enable us to order the test kits.
“If you operate from multiple sites you can only nominate one depot for the kits to be delivered to. So we will have to distribute them ourselves.
“On a personal level, now that the children are back at school I can visit a local test centre to pick up kits for home testing twice a week. I can’t see why something similar can’t be put in place for business. It would be much simpler logistically.”
Hopefully the test kit rollout will accelerate like the astonishingly successful NHS vaccination programme.
