Trusts must not ‘compel’ isolating staff to return to work, says NHSE

A letter to local leaders, dated yesterday, stated: “We are clear that the aim [of the government’s guidance] is to support organisations to reduce the pressure we know is being experienced. However, this flexibility should not be seen as a means to bring back all staff that are absent.

“These guidelines give employers the ‘right to allow’ not to ‘compel’ staff to return to work.”

The letter, signed by chief nursing officer Ruth May, national medical director Stephen Powis and chief people officer Prerana Issar, added staff members who were self-isolating because a household member had tested positive should not be eligible to return to work early.

The document suggested local leaders should consider various factors before asking staff to return. This included whether the patient safety risk posed by staff absence outweighed that created by potential nosocomial transmission and whether staff who usually cared for highly vulnerable patients, such as immunocompromised people, could be redeployed to another area.

On Monday, the government announced “frontline” NHS staff who have received both doses of the coronavirus vaccine may not need to self-isolate if they have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive.

Eligible staff will now have to show a negative PCR test and take daily lateral flow tests to avoid having to self-isolate. Lateral flow tests would have to be taken for a minimum of seven days, and a maximum of 10.

Last week, it was reported trusts in the North East had told staff who had been notified they had been in contact with somebody who had tested positive by the NHS covid app — but who had no covid symptoms themselves — they could carry on working if they took daily tests.