Hartlepool health trust stepping up COVID-19 testing of staff and their families

North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the university hospitals in Hartlepool and North Tees at Stockton, says they have began increasing testing of its staff and family members who are showing symptoms of COVID-19.

Details for how many staff have been test have not been provided by the Department of Health.

Hartlepool MP Mike Hill has written to the local Trust asking for numbers after reports that only 2,000 out of 1.2 million NHS Staff in the country had been tested.

Several frontline health workers including doctors and nurses treating coronavirus patients have sadly died.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has outlined plans for the scaling up of testing of patients, NHS and other key workers, to help the country return to normal.

Mr Hill said: “The coronavirus crisis according to Government sources is about to reach its peak and its an absolute disgrace that mass testing of the population isn’t happening, as it is in places like Germany where death rates are significantly lower than elsewhere.”

He added: “It’s an absolute outrage that [NHS] staff are knowingly reporting for duty to deal with confirmed cases, not only without the correct PPE (personal protection equipment), but also without being tested themselves.”

A Trust spokesperson said: “North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust has been testing staff who are symptomatic for COVID-19, as well as testing family members who may be displaying symptoms (called Index cases).

“In line with government guidance, we began increasing the number of tests from Friday, 3 April.”

The Health Secretary has set a target of 100,000 tests being done per day by the end of April.

Matt Hancock said: “Our ultimate goal is that anyone who needs a test should have one.

“We will get there through a phased approach, starting with patients who need the test, expanding to NHS workers and their families as we are now doing, then other critical key workers as we ramp up further, and then expanding to the wider community over time.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper.

Thank you