How does App work when you care for Covid patients?

[willloman]

Just that really...surely you'll register as being in close contact? How do you avoid the App isolation rigmarole if you are a medical person/carer who deals with patients who have Covid?

It doesn't.

Nurses (in addition to official advice issued to officers by policing nw) are being advised not to download the app.

So now key workers from the NHS and the police will be banned from bars who decide to ignore the ICO and insist on the app for entry. Which i suppose is one way to say you are making your bar or restaurant safe for customers.

It does however, highlight the bollocks idea, that far too many on MN seem to hold that somehow the magic app shall act like an invisible shield and protect you from 'The Rona'.

Clinical staff at my Trust have been advised to turn off contact tracing on the app when at work for this reason.

Excuse my ignorance but can't health care workers just turn off Bluetooth at work then switch it on again when they go to Nando's?

In work we have beem advised when in PPE to turn of our bluetooth

@titchy

Excuse my ignorance but can't health care workers just turn off Bluetooth at work then switch it on again when they go to Nando's?

They can in theory. In practice they are likely to forget leaving the risk of walking around a hospital getting pinged by others, which then encourages them to self isolate (app gives 1/3 'false positives' in normal situations - but thats likely to be higher in a hospital setting).

You don't want staff to be isolating rather than working, because they've banjaxed themselves in work because they didn't turn off their phone.

What about lone worker in care setting who can't turn off bluetooth - phone has to be on to track location?

Delete the app and reinstall when going somewhere that insists you have it?

Ask for separate work phones?

There is a toggle to turn off when wearing PPE or working behind a Perspex screen according to the app FAQs

There is the option on the app to disable contact tracing for 4, 8 or 12 hours. I presume they did this with shifts in mind but they obviously live in fantasy land where your shift/time in the building is exactly those times to the minute! And easy to forget.

You can just download the app when you want it.

Thanku, PeiguSu - good to know that it did cross someone's mind... Shall do this.

as above, you can turn off tracing. I am an nhs clinician visiting patients in their own homes and we have been advised not to download the app. The chances of rembering to turn the tracking on and off repeatedly for me is very small, mening it would always be telling me to isolate!!

You keep the app and just turn off the contact tracing part, partner has been doing this since he downloaded it as works in a hospital.

There’s no way the NHS could continue to operate with loads of staff self-isolating from work.
Of course there’s no way of knowing, but I think I caught covid from work (on a hospital ward)

I work 2 days and am in PPE all day, I’ll just turn the toggle on the app for 8 hours for those 2 days.

1.4 million staff work in the NHS (according to the King’s Fund). That I s a lot of people who could end up self-isolating when they don’t need to with an massive knock on effect on services.
I personally won’t be downloading the app as it is not practical for me to constantly remember to switch it on and off and the risk of being told to self-isolate is too great.
I don’t expect that test and trace will have the capacity to exempt contacts from the self-isolation requirement even if I explain I was in full PPE at work.
If the price to pay is a narrower choice of pubs and restaurants I will have to take my business to those who comply with the ICO

PPE as worn on a standard ward (fluid resistant mask, gloves, apron) is not necessarily a barrier to catching Covid though, unfortunately

If you work on ITU in full PPE then there’s a much lower chance of transmission