Patricia Southworth at the London Ambulance Service NHS Trust asks:

“I would welcome opinions on the following proposal being discussed here at London Ambulance Service NHS Trust.

It is proposed to set up a Covid Isolation Hub which would oversee Covid isolators who report in as being unable to work having been identified by Test and Trace as a contact of someone who has recently tested positive to Covid and told to isolate for 10 days, but their own health is unaffected.  There is some debate about who would staff this Hub, either clinicians (nurses) or call handlers with training, overseen by a clinician.  The objective is to get ‘clinically well’ isolators back to useful employment ASAP.

I am working through some of the governance aspects to ensure this is properly thought out and have considered the following:

• Does this need to be OH led? Or would trained general nurses have sufficient skill? Or could trained non-medical call handlers be utilised?
• What clinical supervision activities would be required?
• How would clinical records be managed?  LAS have an outsourced provider
• Are there patient safety aspects I should also consider?
• Is there anything else I should consider?
• I have suggested voluntary use of the Daily Contact Testing Study, which allows for daily lateral flow testing and only requires isolation if positive

LAS have an outsourced provider and I would be interested in hearing from any NHS OH units who are already involved in Test and Trace activities, have undertaken anything similar or dismissed this activity after consideration.   In which case please do feel free to respond accordingly.

In the event that any member has capacity to help either with staffing or the clinical supervision if this went ahead please do also get in touch.”

Please respond direct to patricia.southworth@nhs.net and cc. to admin@nhshealthatwork.co.uk  

The results from these queries will be shared with Network members via our secure webpage.