Coronavirus: Care home staff 'face 240-mile round trip for testing'

Staff at care homes in Dorset face having to make a 240-mile round trip to Gatwick to be tested for coronavirus, a residential home operator has said.

Encore Care Homes said it was a "farce" to be told staff should travel from Bournemouth and Poole to a drive-through testing site at the airport.

Plans to test care home workers were announced last week.

The government said new testing sites were being built and home-testing kits were being "rapidly developed".

Health secretary Matt Hancock's announced that all care home residents and staff with Covid-19 symptoms would be tested for coronavirus as laboratory capacity increases.

'A farce'

Chief executive of Encore Care Homes Rachel Dryden said about 12% of her workforce of 400 in four homes were currently absent as they were self-isolating due to they or their family showing coronavirus symptoms.

She said it was "very unfair" to require staff to travel for testing, whereas NHS staff can be tested at hospitals.

"I get the intent to put social care workers on a par with NHS staff, but it's a farce.

"Many care workers don't have a car and we're being told you can't travel to test centres by public transport or be driven by anyone outside your household."

Ms Dryden was told her staff should travel to Gatwick for testing - a 240-mile round trip

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said its testing facilities used sites that had "space and good transport links". A site in Portsmouth was announced on Friday.

"We are working with industry partners to launch around 50 regional test sites at convenient locations across the country by the end of April - 29 are already open - to allow all health and care staff to be tested as quickly as possible.

"We are also rapidly developing a home-testing kit and working with Amazon and other commercial partners to reduce the need for front-line workers to travel at all."

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