Test Officers For COVID-19 – But After NHS Staff Have Priority

30 March 2020

Police officers should be tested for Coronavirus, but only if NHS staff are tested first as a priority, Essex Police Federation has said.

Chairman Steve Taylor is backing a call from MP Louise Haigh for police officers to be tested so they can return to frontline duties if they have had the disease.

However, Steve said it is essential for NHS staff to be the priority and get tested first, especially given the dearth of testing kits.

He said: “I am a pragmatist and I strongly believe, as I think my members would, that those on the frontline of the health crisis in the NHS need the PPE and the testing first.

“But when we get ourselves into a space where we’ve got the capacity, then absolutely I would fully expect us to be front of the queue for the additional PPE and the testing.

“I’d like to think we could all agree that’s the way forward. There’s no use me falling over with coronavirus and then getting to the hospital and they’ve all fallen over as well.”

Ms Haigh, Shadow Minister of State for Policing, wrote to Home Secretary Priti Patel outlining several suggestions aimed at keeping officers safe as the coronavirus crisis deepens.

As well as testing and more PPE kit, she has asked for the tax and benefit barriers stopping former officers from getting back into uniform to be removed.

A cut in officer paperwork and a suspension in job-related fitness training would also ease the burden on already thinly spread police resources, the MP for Sheffield Heeley wrote.

“We have the backing of our local MPs in Essex,” Steve said, “but I welcome Ms Haigh’s attempts to underline the importance of PPE.”