Newcastle Sixth Form College chosen for Covid testing trial
Rapid coronavirus testing is set to be trialled among Newcastle Sixth Form College students.
The college wrote to students and parents on Wednesday to confirm that it has been chosen by the government as a pilot location for asymptomatic Covid-19 testing among schools and colleges.
Subject to final approval by the Department for Health and Social Care, testing of the sixth form’s 1,200 students and 100 staff is set to begin on Monday, November 16.
The lateral flow antigen tests can produce a result within 30 minutes without needing to be sent off to a lab and have been used in the city-wide testing trial in Liverpool, with health chiefs hoping that widespread testing of people who are not showing coronavirus symptoms will identify more hidden cases and bring down infection rates.
The college’s rapid testing programme comes in addition to the tens of thousands of lateral flow tests for the North East that the government announced on Tuesday.
Every council in the North East is being sent an initial batch of 10,000 tests this week to “start testing priority groups”, plus additional weekly allocations equivalent to 10% of their population.
In an email to students on Wednesday requesting they consent to be tested, Newcastle Sixth Form College, on Westmorland Road, said the trial would help create “the safest possible space” for its 1,224 students and would cause “minimal disruption” to classes.
The email said: “We are working hard to keep our college as safe as possible. We are extremely grateful for your efforts and support throughout the first term to ensure we have been able to maximise the face to face teaching at the college.
“Now we have been asked to extend our involvement in the national programme of activity around track and trace, and we wanted to share this information with you, and to request your consent to take part in a new proposed activity at the college.
“The Secretary of State for Health is currently looking at pilots in schools across the country for new, quicker Covid-19 tests, and Newcastle Sixth Form College has been chosen as one of the pilot locations.
“The trial will take place at college and will be supervised by trained staff. There will be minimal disruption to lessons. The tests are quick and easy using a swab of your nose and throat, with results of these tests being available within 30 minutes.
“If the trial is given approval the NHS Test and Trace team will start testing students and staff who want to participate in this trial from Monday 16th November 2020.
“The test has been tested at Public Health England’s research laboratories and is totally safe. Testing is free and provided by NHS Test and Trace.”
After the tens of thousands of rapid-turnaround Covid-19 for local councils were announced on Tuesday, a spokesperson for the LA7 group of local authorities said they could “create an opportunity to relax some of the physical and emotional barriers our residents have faced”.