Key-worker testing to move to Derbion centre
DERBY’S Covid-19 testing centre for key workers and high-risk residents is to move from the Pride Park area to the Derbion, formerly Intu Derby, shopping centre.
The move to the city centre is aimed at boosting take-up at the site and to ensure other parts of the population, including retail workers, are able to have direct access to testing.
It is also hoped to improve access overall for residents without their own transport, with links to the city centre far more readily available.
The announcement was made during a Derby City Council health and wellbeing meeting on Thursday, March 18.
Dr Robyn Dewis, the authority’s public health director, said the key worker testing centre, for those without symptoms, at the Riverside Centre in Riverside Road, would be moving at the end of March after a month and a half.
She told the meeting that the Riverside Centre site ran around 700 Covid-19 tests last week and did not identify any positive tests.
Dr Dewis said: “We have had the site at the Riverside Centre and we were due to come to the end of that lease agreement at the end of March.
“We are hoping to move that site in April, for the period April to June, into the Derbion centre so that it is in the city centre.
“If we are able to do that we can see what difference that will make to access to the site. We are well aware that asymptomatic testing is more available to people anyway so we may well get a reduction in use.
Families with children at school can now have home testing kits and business sites can receive testing kits if they wish to.
“The question of what a central site means in the future will be able to be reviewed with it being in the city centre at the Derbion.”
Cllr Chris Poulter, leader of the authority, said: “I suspect you will get quite a few retail staff, who are a vulnerable group, coming as well, which will be useful.”
The testing site at the Riverside Centre has been aimed at key workers and residents who have been deemed more at risk from the virus but just those without Covid symptoms. Appointments are available by booking online or on the phone.
As well as testing, the centre offers guidance for those who have to selfisolate following a positive test result by signposting individuals to support such as financial grants they may be eligible for or Derby’s Community Hub.
This also includes any mental health support or welfare assistance residents may need.