SCOTTISH Government plans to routinely test all care home staff are being stymied by inconsistency across health boards and slow results, MSPs will hear today.
Scottish Care, the body representing the sector, will deliver the warning to Holyrood’s Covid-19 committee ahead of the first data on staff testing being made public.
Health Secretary Jeane Freeman announced on May 18 that all 53,000 care home staff would be offered weekly testing to help curb the spread of the virus to residents.
However it has still not happened, and last week Ms Freeman warned boards she would publish their testing data each week from today.
In its written evidence to this morning’s committee, Scottish Care said the “inconsistency of approach, messaging and responsiveness” was “unacceptable given the very clear directions” from the First Minister and Ms Freeman.
It said home operators “continue to report to us instances where staff have been told they cannot access testing unless symptomatic, of workers having to use Lighthouse [the Glasgow super-lab] facilities rather than Health Boards, and examples of test results not being returned for over a week.
“These challenges are incompatible with the urgent need for routine testing, given that initial testing experiences are so variable.
“There absolutely must be reliable consistency and regularity to provide the required assurances that those in care services remain protected as lockdown eases, and to identify and minimise any outbreaks at the earliest opportunity.”
The body also said there was an urgent need for clear Government guidance on easing visitor restrictions, with staff “understandably nervous” about being blamed for any resulting Covid cases.
It said anxiety and distress amongst staff was “increasing at the prospect of potentially spreading infection as the risk level increases.
“Despite public assurances regarding a lack of blame on care staff for infection outbreaks, the level of intense scrutiny and finger-pointing that the care sector has experienced is impacting staff’s fears of accidental culpability.”
National Records of Scotland will today publish figures expected to show Covid-19 has been implicated in more than 4000 Scots deaths in Scotland up to June 7, around half of them in care homes.
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