Corby firms urged to sign up to rapid in-work Covid testing as companies with 50 employees now eligible

Businesses are being urged to apply for workplace lateral flow Covid testing after the government opened up the scheme to all employers with 50 staff or more.

Previously, workplace testing has only been available to firms with 250 employees. But today (Monday, February 8) the government has changed the criteria to allow companies with fifty employees to get their staff tested at work.

It means thousands of small and medium sized firms will now be able to offer routine on-site testing for employees who cannot work from home.

Corby MP Tom Pursglove has this lunchtime urged all local businesses who are eligible to sign up to then scheme after the constituency experienced Covid infections at a significantly higher rate than the rest of the country.

Lateral flow testing is designed to catch asymptomatic cases and people who test positive can then get a full PCR test through the government’s website. Although lateral flow is not as reliable as PCR testing it does pick up cases where people might not have known they were infected and stops them unknowingly spreading the virus around their communities.

Corby’s LF testing site at Lodge Park is open to certain groups of workers and has carried out more than 1,300 tests. Results are usually returned within just a few minutes.

Mr Pursglove said: “Given the challenges we are facing in Corby in particular at the moment - although welcomely the number of cases continues to fall, albeit not as quickly as we would like - the announcement that the criteria for joining the workplace testing programme is being reduced to businesses with more than 50 employees, boosting the availability of rapid testing further, is extremely welcome and will no doubt expand eligibility to many more firms in our area.

“As such, I have asked this morning for this opportunity to be urgently pursued by our local public health leaders and for maximum awareness of it to be generated locally as quickly as possible.

“Businesses with 50 employees or more can directly order lateral flow testing kits for their employees - the same used to keep our amazing frontline NHS and social care staff safe here“However, a really important message that has to keep being reinforced is that a negative test does not mean you can deviate from the rules and mix between households and there have been a few instances locally where people have had a test, it has come back negative and they have then acted as if everything is ‘normal’.

“We are also seeing similar behaviour from time to time amongst those who have been vaccinated - so please, even if you have had a negative test, or have been vaccinated, you must continue to adhere to the rules; and it may just save the life of someone you love.

“I really do hope that businesses in our area will take this offer up - we all have a role to play in driving down the worrying rates of infection we have seen locally of late and to help get this virus back under control.”

Many employers have already taken up the offer of rapid, regular workforce testing, with 112 UK organisations across almost 500 sites joining government backed rapid testing. The government hopes today’s announcement will rapidly increase the numbers eligible for testing in order to keep businesses open and the economy going.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “To save lives and protect the NHS, we have again asked for everyone to work from home. But we know that for some this is not possible, which is why the workplace rapid testing programme is so important.

“Employers should regularly test their staff, and this drive across government to raise awareness and encourage more businesses to introduce rapid testing for employees is incredibly important. When you consider that around one in three people have the virus without symptoms and could potentially infect people without even knowing it, it becomes clear why focusing testing on those without symptoms is so essential.

You can find out more about eligibility here