We want roll-out of workplace Covid testing across UK

The Mail on Sunday today launches a major campaign to roll out rapid Covid-19 testing in workplaces across Britain – and help reboot the economy. An investigation by this newspaper found that a string of giant companies had recorded astonishing successes in large-scale trials of regular testing for their employees. 

John Lewis, Tata Steel, Jaguar Land Rover, Bentley and Octopus Energy told us they had saved tens of thousands of employee hours and hundreds of thousands of pounds in business that would have been lost due to staff having to stay at home. 

They said in some cases the regular rapid testing programme had helped avoid entire factories being shut down. The results indicate that rapid testing could play a vital role in reopening the economy and getting millions of people back to work. Several of the companies took part in a Government pilot scheme to conduct routine tests on staff who display no Covid symptoms. In most cases, these were so-called ‘lateral flow’ tests which cost as little as £5 a test. 

What a result: Testing of staff in the workplace means they can carry on with their jobs – and boost the economy

After the tests, employees waited in isolated areas to receive their results within 15 to 60 minutes. If they tested positive, they were sent home to isolate. If they tested negative, they were allowed to go into the workplace. 

Under the trials, even staff who had been in contact with a Covid sufferer were allowed to go to work each day, provided they kept testing negative for seven consecutive days. Two of the largest participants using this strategy, Tata and John Lewis, have together saved around 8,000 sick days for thousands of staff who would have had to self-isolate. 

The Government’s support package for the pilot scheme paid for testing kits at companies across the food, manufacturing, energy and retail sectors, as well as public sector organisations including transport networks, job centres and the military.

Now The Mail on Sunday wants workplace testing to become commonplace across the UK. Our Tests at Work campaign calls for: 

  • More companies to launch rapid Covid testing in the workplace to bring staff back to factories, plants, shops and offices; 
  • The Government to help pay for the testing kits by extending the deadline for its pilot support scheme beyond the current date of March 31; 
  • An official marketing campaign informing businesses how to apply and how to implement Covid testing in the workplace; 
  • A major expansion of the Government support scheme to include businesses based in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Last night the British Chambers of Commerce threw its weight behind our campaign. 

Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith, president of the BCC, said: ‘We have been campaigning for mass workplace testing throughout the pandemic. We are delighted to support The Mail on Sunday’s campaign to help make it a reality. Mass testing is crucial to help businesses restart, rebuild and renew, and alongside the vaccines it will help build the economy and keep it open.’ 

Lord Bilimoria, the president of the Confederation of British Industry, Britain’s biggest business lobby group, said: ‘To truly get to grips on this stubborn virus, we must not only continue with a successful vaccine roll-out, but get more businesses testing in the workplace. Lateral flow tests in factories, shops and work sites would mean we can catch new cases quicker when there are no symptoms.’ 

About one in three people who test positive for Covid display no symptoms and may be unknowingly spreading the virus. 

The Government’s official advice remains to work at home if you can, but many companies and staff have no choice but to go to a workplace to enable their businesses to function. Government departments and NHS Test and Trace launched the testing pilot scheme late last year to pay for kits, and to support companies in the roll-out. 

Most companies used both mass testing and so-called daily contact testing. This is where employees without symptoms who believe they may have been in contact with Covid sufferers – for example, because they received a notification on the NHS contact tracing app – are allowed to go to work each day if they keep testing negative. 

John Lewis Partnership told the MoS it is now testing 21,400 employees a week across 57 sites, including at warehouses and Waitrose stores. More than 45,700 tests have taken place with fewer than 1 per cent of results positive. John Lewis said it had saved 6,643 working days for 2,286 employees by using daily contact testing. 

Boost: John Lewis Partnership said it is now testing 21,400 employees a week across 57 sites, including at warehouses and Waitrose stores

Boost: John Lewis Partnership said it is now testing 21,400 employees a week across 57 sites, including at warehouses and Waitrose stores

The retailer, which launched testing in November, said it had helped manage absences more effectively during the Black Friday and Christmas sales rush and now with increased demand for John Lewis online and Waitrose food stores during lockdown. 

Andrew Murphy, group operations director at John Lewis, said the company had concerns over how smooth and effective the testing scheme would be before entering the pilot. 

But he told the MoS: ‘There was serious consideration, but we felt that having the knowledge [of Covid test results] ultimately couldn’t be a bad thing for our partners [as the retailer calls its staff] or for us. And we recognised that unless businesses like ours played a part, the pace at which society in general would come to any real usable conclusions and gain knowledge [from the trials] would be slowed.

‘If there was an unintended consequence of doing this testing that was worrying on the infectiousness or illness side, we would be seeing it at Magna Park.’ The park is the company’s 1,000-staff campus near Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. 

Murphy said: ‘But instead we’re seeing lower absence, lower cases, lower spread. All the metrics are better, not just the fact we’re releasing people to come back to work sooner than would normally be the case when asymptomatic. That feels really exciting, if you think about what lateral flow tests – if properly administered – could do for the country at scale.’ Tata Steel launched daily contact testing – alongside mass testing – in late December and told The Mail on Sunday it had saved ‘hundreds of thousands of pounds’ as a result. 

The testing programme helped it to avoid five potential production stops at its vast Port Talbot steelworks, which employs 4,000 people. The system allowed major maintenance works at the South Wales site, and at Shotton in North Wales, to continue using outside contractors, who were tested each day. 

Tata estimates 12,500 work hours have been saved as staff who would have had to self-isolate were allowed to continue to work. In total, it has completed 5,627 tests with 88 positive case identified. It now plans to roll out contact testing to all of its 18 UK sites.

Dean Magill, head of central operations at Tata Europe, said: ‘You can’t easily switch off our process. It’s a 24/7 operation and with the potential isolations that we would have had in place if we had not had the daily contact testing scheme, we would have found it very difficult to run the plant.’ Magill said Tata had drawn up early-stage plans to use its on-site ‘testing village’ – which has dedicated test administering and waiting areas – to be used for vaccinations for employees, their families and contractors. 

Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson said, though testing was voluntary, ‘almost 100 per cent’ of staff use its testing facilities. 

Help: Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson said, though testing was voluntary, 'almost 100 per cent' of staff use its testing facilities

Help: Octopus Energy chief executive Greg Jackson said, though testing was voluntary, ‘almost 100 per cent’ of staff use its testing facilities

He said: ‘By getting up and running quickly, we were aiming to help other companies and the Government learn how workplace testing could contribute to tackling the pandemic.’ 

Smurfitt Kappa’s UK chief executive Eddie Fellows said the FTSE 100-listed packaging giant had begun testing earlier this month and had found 26 asymptomatic Covid cases. He told an online conference: ‘Our view is to do something is better than to do nothing. The cost of a test is relatively modest compared to the cost of bringing this into your factory.’ 

Bentley has provided nearly 15,000 tests to staff at its Crewe factory since May last year, which revealed just 272 ‘mostly asymptomatic’ cases. The carmaker has had no proven cases of on-site transmission. 

Jaguar Land Rover – which was forced to transfer employees from its plant in Castle Bromwich, in the West Midlands, seven miles south to Solihull to cover Covid-related absentees – is also part of the pilot. Employees who may have been in contact with a person with Covid must be tested each day for seven consecutive days – either at work or at an NHS site. 

Routine: Jaguar Land Rover – which was forced to transfer employees from its plant in Castle Bromwich to Solihull to cover Covid-related absentees – is also part of the pilot

Routine: Jaguar Land Rover – which was forced to transfer employees from its plant in Castle Bromwich to Solihull to cover Covid-related absentees – is also part of the pilot

Defence giant BAE Systems is conducting thousands of tests a week at its submarine factory in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, which has 3,500 staff on site. It plans to roll out the scheme to sites in Lancashire, Portsmouth and Glasgow. 

A CBI survey showed that 87 per cent of businesses were currently not testing in the workplace, with a lack of expertise, unclear guidance and logistical constraints cited as key barriers. 

JUST £5 EACH – AND AN ANSWER IN MINUTES 

Most companies that have introduced rapid Covid testing in the workplace are using so-called lateral flow tests. 

These are quicker and cheaper than the gold-standard PCR tests. Results are typically available in around 15 minutes, and should take an hour at the most. 

Testing kits cost about £30 each. However, businesses buying in volume are likely to end up paying between £5 and £10 for each. So a business testing 100 employees twice weekly will be facing a cost of £1,000 to £2,000 a week. 

The tests are highly sensitive so positive results are usually very reliable. However, some positive cases have been known to slip through the net, so regular testing is vital. 

Under the pilot scheme launched by the Government last year, medical workers have been giving training to employees to enable staff to administer the tests on their colleagues. 

The Government is handling the cost and sourcing of tests for companies in its pilot until the end of March. Novacyt is one of the largest providers. Smaller operators include Covid Home Test. 

Test kits in the UK are regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. 

Once in possession of the kit, companies are testing in two ways. The first is mass testing, where workers without symptoms are regularly checked on a voluntary basis to screen for the virus. 

The second is daily contact testing. Those who think they may have been in contact with a Covid sufferer – perhaps because they were notified by the NHS Test and Trace app – are tested daily for seven days. They can continue to work if they test negative, eliminating the need for self-isolation.

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