Question reference: S5O-04318
- Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 18 March 2020
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Current status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 31 March 2020
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether GPs, nurses and staff at medical practices are being tested for COVID-19, and also carers making home visits.
Answer
Our priorities for testing are directing testing capacity to save lives and protect the vulnerable; ensuring that critical staff can return to work as soon as possible; and monitoring and reporting of the spread and prevalence of the virus in the population and the impact of public health measures.
Guidance has been published for the NHS to support use of the testing capacity in laboratories, in so far as it is not needed for essential care, in order to enable health and social care staff to be back at work when that is safe.
We are expanding this programme to cover critical frontline NHS and social care staff, and workers in other critical areas.
However, the tests we have available are effective at identifying people who have COVID-19, but only when they are symptomatic. They cannot reliably detect infection prior to the onset of symptoms. This is why we are not testing key workers who do not have symptoms.
NHS territorial boards will put in place appropriate local arrangements for testing of NHS and social care staff who are symptomatic.