How often are hospital nurses tested?

[notevenat20]

My father in law just got covid in hospital and died. It seems likely he caught it from a nurse as no visitors are allowed and he hardly saw a doctor. I don't blame anyone but does anyone know how often hospital nurses are tested?

They still need the equipment to enable testing. The hospital I work at (as a healthcare student) has run out of lateral flow tests and they are waiting for their next delivery. I can’t not work in the meantime. I don’t know what other hospitals are doing however but I’m sure they are being responsible with their staff

Twice a week in our Trust. It’s a very difficult virus to contain and no health care worker would want to infect anyone. Our Trust are also working to vaccinate staff and I had it beginning of January.

I’m so sorry for your loss😢 It’s a truly awful situation.

Leeds General Infirmary.

Leeds Trust are getting frontline staff to test twice weekly.

All clinical staff test ourselves twice weekly at our trust.(lateral flow).

We have known of a few asymptomatic who have been picked up but not many at all.

Patients are tested on admission and every 5 days after.

Twice a week for my husband in major hospital in Devon.
Sorry for your loss

@krazipan

Leeds Trust are getting frontline staff to test twice weekly.

Maybe this is only done in some departments? Or like a another poster mentioned they must have ran out. I have never been offered any type of test. Neither have my colleagues that I work with.

I'm sorry that your FIL died in this way. It must be very hard to accept. Sadly, with the best will in the world, infection does spread in hospitals. That's why they like patients to be discharged as soon as possible and only admitted if absolutely necessary.

Covid is spread in the air, too, so it's impossible to avoid all spread of infection. That's why ICU nurses are double gloved - one inside the gown and one outside the glove, and their gloves are taped to their gown.

We don’t get tested at all in my trust.

We don’t get tested at all in my trust.

Which trust is that?

What do you hope to achieve from naming and shaming hospital trusts op?

OP you must understand for staff it isn’t their place to name trusts. Especially on a public forum.

Sorry for your loss, OP. As people have said, it's very difficult to completely stop transmission in hospitals. Your FIL would have been seen by a large range of professionals during his time there.
At my trust we do twice weekly lateral flow tests.

OP if you are very keen to know, you could contact the ward and ask? If they don't want to answer, you could send in a FOI request asking is there regular testing of staff in that area (including every single staff member who enters the ward in any capacity), and if not why not. Your FIL will definitely have been having input from other staff, not just nurses, following a hip fracture. Unfortunately prognosis after a hip fracture is not great as I am sure you are aware, there generally is quite intensive support during the recovery to try and improve this. So I would be surprised if your FIL was kept in for so long but did not receive support from anyone but nurses? Therefore it is important to enquire about testing for all staff and not just nurses. For example, was he given therapy by a physio who also works in ICU? These are the sorts of questions you could ask. Though I think staff moving between covid and non-covid is unavoidable at present due to the dire situation in our hospitals

Also, if your FIL had needed a month on hospitals to recover from a broken hip, he sadly must have been fairly frail. Hospitals are doing everything they can at the moment to discharge people as quickly (but safely) as possible because they both need the beds and want to reduce the risk of hospital acquired infection.

My sister has twice weekly lateral flow. Most staff on her ward had covid during the first wave.

I'm in Scotland and was told by my Consultant that he and his doctor colleagues are tested weekly, but nurses are not tested at all.

Hence me putting my elective surgery much further back towards the end of the year.

Lateral flow test twice a week in ours

BUT they are really really not very accurate. I had Covid as did my DH and the lateral flows were negative when we had symptoms and had positive PCRs.

We all use PPE scrupulously
No-one would come to work if they had symptoms or were a contact (no incentive to as you get paid anyway and no pressure to either)

Nonetheless we still have had outbreaks on a number of wards and yes it's likely that it was brought in by staff as the patients are isolated on admission.

However to blame staff for that is not on. Staff have kids who go to school and nursery. Nurses and Drs are very often married to other nurses and Drs who might work in a different healthcare setting and pick it up there. Or they could get it at the supermarket like anyone could.

The day I started to have COVID symptoms in the evening I had already worked a full day. My lateral flow was negative that very morning and I felt well. I had no idea at all that I had COVID. I used all my PPE.

Fortunately I did not give it to any patients (the outbreak was a month later and was traced to another staff member) but the guilt that I might have was indescribable.

Staff cannot be blamed for transmitting Covid in a COVID pandemic. We try very very hard not to and for 11 months we were successful but the local cases are so high that one was bound to get through eventually.

The government is to blame NOT individual care workers. Please please do not add to the guilt they already feel.

In my hospital, twice weekly LFTs, and once weekly PCR. Also, due to the new variants, changes and upgrades in PPE.
All patient facing staff have to do this. A wonderful lady from our post room died last week, from Covid, these staff are also tested.
I’m sorry to hear about your loss.

To be fair, the op has been very clear that they are not blaming individual clinicians, they are just hoping to confirm that the Trust were doing all they could to detect staff cases at the earliest opportunity to protect patients. I don't think this is unreasonable and is a normal part of the grieving process to be honest (to look for blame). It might be helpful for the op to (hopefully) learn that all possible precautions were taken to protect her fil.

@UseOfWeapons

In my hospital, twice weekly LFTs, and once weekly PCR. Also, due to the new variants, changes and upgrades in PPE. All patient facing staff have to do this. A wonderful lady from our post room died last week, from Covid, these staff are also tested. I’m sorry to hear about your loss.

That is so sad I am interested to hear in the changes to PPE? We now have to wear visors with all patient contact in addition to the mask/apron/gloves. What changes has your trust made?

Sorry for your loss OP.

What about agency staff, are they tested ?

Ours upgraded from normal surgical masks to FFP3 when dealing with COVID positive patients under pressure from staff who are dropping like 9 pins despite using PPE. Management were very reluctant and want to 'follow national guidance' aka save money and PPE supplies

National guidance is still just normal surgical mask, plastic apron and gloves even with COVID positive patients unless doing an AGP.

Testing really isn't the be all and end all. Even PCR has 30% false negative rate lateral flow is even worse it's got about a 50:50 chance of picking up a positive. It barely detected any of the staff positives in our outbreak.

I don't think it is proven useful enough as a strategy that all Trusts are mandated to use it so it would not be negligent not to provide it. Ours is framed as being part of a trial and being optional but in fact all staff do engage with it as we desperately don't want to infect anyone or indeed have it ourselves.
Presumably that are collecting data on its effectiveness but my guess would be that the answer will be not great.

I'm sorry for your loss. Was he being treated in an isolation room? If not, then it's quite possible that he caught it from another patient.