Asymptomatic Lateral Test Site on Slough Trading Estate
A new lateral flow test site has been made available since Wednesday 3rd February at 951 Yeovil Road, SL1 4NH and is open for testing from 10am to 5.30pm (last slots at 5.20), Monday to Friday. You can just walk in or book a slot in advance, but you need a mobile phone with you.
It’s available to all businesses and users of the Slough Trading Estate – operators, contractors, vendors, customers and construction staff. Please encourage your staff and contractors to take regular lateral flow tests. Twice a week is the interval recommended by government for effective screening.
You can book using this link: https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/[email protected]/bookings/ or just turn up to the test site at 951 Yeovil Road SL1 4NH
Slough Borough Council has also produced a useful poster template for businesses to adapt for use in the workplace to encourage uptake. You can find that here.
This has been set up by Slough Borough Council with SEGRO’s help. This should be in place until 20th February to provide a short term bridge while we wait for the national test programme for businesses to do their own testing to roll out. This may be extended further depending on demand, especially from businesses with fewer than 50 employees who do not qualify for the national business testing offer. As well as a stop-gap it will be a useful model for operators who want to run their own asymptomatic testing operations or set up testing in other data centre clusters.
What is Asymptomatic Lateral Flow Testing and why is it useful?
The purpose of lateral flow testing is to screen communities because around 1/3 of infected people are asymptomatic and government estimates that at least 50% of COVID-19 infection is spread this way. At present it is not envisaged that people will have to take a test and show negative result before they arrive on site, but will be encouraged to undertake regular (twice a week) tests and may be asked to show that recent test results are negative. The tests are much faster, but slightly less accurate than PCR testing. Negative test results do NOT reduce the need for PPE or other infection controls, whether the test was PCR or lateral flow. This useful video explains lateral flow testing, why it is appropriate for large scale screening and what the caveats are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ_8b_Ydsv0 Lateral flow testing is for asymptomatic people who cannot work from home. Those with any symptoms should book PCR tests.
For businesses not in range of STE the government is providing options for lateral flow testing. See our insight here or the DHSC announcement here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-boost-to-rapid-workplace-testing and you can start the process here: https://www.gov.uk/get-workplace-coronavirus-tests
Any questions, please get in touch.