Health and social care workers are to get priority testing for coronavirus to help get them back to work, if healthy.

The Health Secretary, Jeane Freeman, announced the step to help health boards with serious staffing pressures as many workers self-isolate with symptoms or with family members.

She said that the priority is still patients who are admitted to hospital but that the NHS and care workforce come next.

Ms Freeman said: “It is essential that front-line health and social care staff can remain at work. To help to save lives, we must continue to prioritise testing in hospitals.

"All remaining capacity must be used to ensure that critical staff can return to work as soon as possible.

“Today, I am publishing guidance for the NHS to support use of the testing capacity in our laboratories, in so far as it is not needed for essential care, in order to enable health and social care staff to be back at work when that is safe.

“NHS boards will prioritise testing, based on where the pressure is felt most in their workforce and in social care.”

She said if there is any more available testing capacity it will be extended to other key workers.

Boards are being asked to prioritise testing the symptomatic household members of health and social care staff – in cases where the staff have no symptoms but have to remain in isolation because a family member does.

This will mean that where the household member tests negative, the health or social care staff member will not have to isolate for 14 days, and this will have the greatest impact in reducing working days lost.

For example, if a nurse is symptomatic and receives a negative test result three days after the onset of symptoms, the number of working days could be reduced by four because they would not have to complete the full seven days of self-isolation.

However, if that nurse is in household isolation because their son has a fever and cough, they would normally be required to stay in household isolation for 14 days. If the son is tested and receives a negative test result three days after symptom onset, the number of working days lost would be reduced by 11.