The Department for Transport has confirmed with the RHA that truck drivers are exempt from the daily testing scheme, as while they are critical workers, they work in isolation and are not working face to face with other workers, therefore do not need to comply with daily LF testing requirements.
We have also been assured by the government that supply of LFTs is increasing. Additionally, it also said there was still potential for firms to apply for critical worker status: “We can still put forward specific businesses and sites for the scheme where they meet its tests. We must emphasise though that the bar is very high and the following tests must be met.”
The tests are:
- Your sector works in particularly risky environments where they could infect their colleagues – e.g. enclosed spaces with limited ventilation; and
Absences in your sector would be likely to cause significant disruption to public services or national security. - In addition your qualifying workforce must meet the same tests as for the critical worker exemption in the “pingdemic”:
- A critical worker is one who works in those critical elements of infrastructure (namely assets, facilities, systems, networks or processes and the essential workers that operate and facilitate them), the loss or compromise of which could result in:
- Major detrimental impact on the availability, integrity or delivery of essential services – including those services whose integrity, if compromised, could result in significant loss of life or casualties – taking into account significant economic or social impacts; and/or
- Significant impact on national security, national defence, or the functioning of the state.
Any applications including evidence demonstrating these tests have been met should be sent to: FOLRnotification@dft.gov.uk
Five week programme
The UK Health Security Agency has now provided additional information on the precautionary testing approach announced by the PM on Tuesday as follows:
- The Government will provide 100,000 critical workers in England with free lateral flow tests
- Critical workers will be able to take a test on every working day for an initial five weeks
- These critical workers are those who work in essential services, cannot work from home and are at risk of infecting each other
- People covered by the scheme will include those who work in critical national infrastructure, national security, transport, and food distribution and processing
- The full range of critical workers has been identified by the relevant departments and government will contact these organisations directly on the logistics of the scheme this week
The UKHSA also said that tests will be “separate from public sectors who already have a testing allocation” such as education or adult social care – and separate to domestic and pharmacy deliveries.
The government also said it was now distributing around 600,000 packs of 7 lateral flow tests on gov.uk directly to homes every day – more than 50% higher than last week.
Wider testing provision
Lateral flow testing remains available free to all through gov.uk, pharmacies and Targeted Community Testing, and the government “encouraged” firms to use these routes for distribution to workforces.
The government also said: “We continue to highlight your concerns about the availability of LFTs to UKHSA and across Government. To support this any further details of difficulties you are experiencing in accessing LFTs would be helpful, including whether provision through private test providers is not available or staff are experiencing difficulties in accessing tests through the gov.uk or pharmacy routes.
“If there are any particular patterns, for example areas of the country where provision is less reliable that would also be useful to know so that we can feed it back to UKHSA.”
Source RHA
