Staff testing

Order your lateral flow testing kits and record your results

From  Thursday 1 September 2022, we will pause testing for asymptomatic staff and patients in line with the new national guidance.

Symptomatic testing will continue for both patients and staff, based on the current list of COVID-19 symptoms:

  • a high temperature or shivering (chills) – a high temperature means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
  • a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours
  • a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste
  • shortness of breath
  • feeling tired or exhausted
  • an aching body
  • a headache
  • a sore throat
  • a blocked or runny nose
  • loss of appetite
  • diarrhoea
  • feeling sick or being sick

Staff with symptoms should continue to test via lateral flow tests are per Trust policy.

Report my result- using the national reporting system

Simple guidelines on how to do the test can be found in this really useful illustrated guide: Lateral Flow Instructions including how you must leave the test for the full development time to get an accurate result. Do not read your results until 30 minutes. If the test device is left to develop longer you may receive a false positive result and you will need to repeat the test. If your result is positive, report it using the online form and also immediately report the result to the Occupational Health department and your line manager. You will then be asked to take a confirmatory PCR test, and you and your household should self-isolate according to Government guidelines until the result of that test is known.

To get a box of seven tests, order them online from the national system, and they will be posted to you at home.

When you register on the national system, you will be able to order your own tests and input the name of the Trust to ensure the tests are registered as belonging to an NHS member of staff. A box of seven tests will be posted to you at your home address, free of charge. These will last you just over three weeks, when testing twice per week.

To see a full step by step video on how to carry out the test please see this helpful video  and use this guide: Staff guide and our FAQs below.

Logging your test results:

Once you have taken your test, you need to log the test result using the national reporting system.

  • If your result is positive, report it using the online form and also immediately report the result to the Occupational Health department and your line manager. You will then be asked to take a confirmatory PCR test, and you and your household should self-isolate according to Government guidelines until the result of that test is known.
  • If your result is negative, report it using the online form and then attend work as usual.
  • If your result is inconclusive, you will be asked to perform the test again immediately using another test kit. If that is also inconclusive please contact the Occupational Heath team.
  • You must also record any inconclusive/invalid tests using the electronic form.

If you are not confident in self-administering your first test, you can seek support from Occupational Health via [email protected]

For further Government guidance on testing, including FAQs, please see the Government testing web pages.

For further information on the sensitivity of lateral flow tests see this research.