Leicestershire County Council Labour Group - led by Coalville Councillor Terri Enyon - has presented a 'Submission to Cabinet' this week in which it raises concerns over key worker testing.

It strongly supports the proposal to resume community testing and contact tracing and believes this should be carried out by Local Government, not outsourced.

The Labour Group says it recognises the proactive response by the council and the ongoing work being done by staff to ensure many services remain as unaffected as possible.

But the Group is concerned about the reliability of key worker testing.

It says the testing of NHS staff, household members or other key workers may not be reliable.

The sensitivity of the test can be affected by a number of variables related to the site and timing of the swab.

A sensitivity of 95 per cent means that out of every 100 people who have Covid-19 and are tested, five people will have a false negative test result and return to work, putting patients and family members at risk.

These concerns also apply to the antibody test which may not provide reassurance that a key worker is safe from future infection by Covid-19.

Cllr Eynon, retired GP, Labour Group Leader at the council and Councillor for Coalville County Division and Hugglescote St Mary's District ward said: "While the sensitivity of the PCR test is good in laboratory terms, if the way the test is taken in the community reduces that sensitivity to 95 per cent it means five per cent of people could be falsely reassured and return to work while still carrying the virus.

"Can we be sure that the limitations of the testing are understood by employers and that a clinical assessment of symptoms and if necessary, a re-test will be part of the process?"

The Labour Group supports the proposed resumption of community testing and contact tracing.

It is calling for the work to be carried out by Local Government, in-house, with appropriate remuneration, rather than outsourced to the private sector.

On a national level, Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth MP has also called for clarity on the number of tests being carried out.

"Labour has repeatedly called for more testing, and increasing testing is an important milestone. But many would have expected the 100,000 promise to have been met by actually carrying out testing, not simply because 39,000 kits had been mailed out. Ministers promised transparency – the public and the NHS staff deserve clarity. We need a fully resourced testing, isolation and tracing programme and ministers should be using this lockdown time to put the fundamentals of infectious disease control in place."