Extra reassurance for care home visits
Royal Borough: Two centres are now offering lateral tests
Loved ones going to visit a care home resident will now be able to get a COVID-19 test at the Royal Borough’s lateral flow test centres.
On Monday the restrictions eased so care home residents can have a designated visitor who will be able to come indoors – however they must have a lateral flow test before entry.
David Scott, Royal Borough head of communities, who is leading the project in the borough said this can be taken at Windsor Leisure Centre or Braywick Leisure Centre.
He said: “We have said from the outset one of the reasons that someone may have to leave home was to be a carer and they would therefore be able to access the centres as this carer duty is in effect unpaid work.
“As the Step 1 of the roadmap out of lockdown includes one visitor to a care home resident, we have agreed this is the equivalent of a carer visiting someone in their own home and so to help prevent the risk of lines of transmission, the visitor can access the lateral flow testing.”
Suggested tweaks to the centres were discussed at the communities overview and scrutiny panel on Monday, with Cllr Greg Jones (Con, Riverside) pointing out the current booking system required people to enter a company they were affiliated with.
David Scott replied he would see if the team could change the field to reflect something more accurate as not everyone visiting care homes will have a company they work for.
During the meeting he told the panel that more people were now using the two lateral flow test centres.
He said: “We will continue to try and promote awareness and the use of that as people are beginning to return to work and as the road map progresses and more people are out and about we are expecting the numbers of individuals using the service to continue to grow.
“It’s really important we get those people identified who are asymptomatic carriers as they are out and about without realising they are contributing to continued chains of infection.”
He said the number of people testing positive was ‘relatively low’ but for every one person identified it reduced the spread of infection which was ‘what it’s all about’.
He said the council is looking at plans to be ready to surge test if they are told to do so by Public Health.
The next phase will be called Community Collect which involves people being able to pick up COVID-19 tests to do at home. This service should be available within the coming weeks.
Visit rbwm.gov.uk/home/ council-and-democracy/ contact-us/coronavirusinformation-andsupport/covid-19-communitytestin to book a test.