Front line health workers, carers and relatives of care home residents must be top priority in mass testing, say Liberal Democrats

Oldham Liberal Democrat Leader, Councillor Howard Sykes MBE

The Oldham Council Liberal Democrat Group wants to see front line health and care workers and the relatives of care home residents given top priority when mass COVID-19 testing is rolled out across Oldham.  

The Government has announced that Oldham will be one of 67 new areas to be targeted for mass testing because of the high number of new cases detected each week in the Borough.

Testing the front line health and care workers in our National Health Service and care homes who are leading the fight to save the lives and alleviate the suffering of others from this terrible disease must, for the Liberal Democrats, be an absolute priority, but Group Leader, Councillor Howard Sykes MBE, makes a plea for a third category of our residents not be overlooked. 

According to a recent survey carried out by Age UK, seven out of ten people with a close relative in a care home have not seen them since the start of the pandemic in March.

Commenting Councillor Sykes said:  “In this pandemic, one of the greatest tragedies has been seeing the forced separation of the residents of our care homes from their loved ones.  For the residents of the care homes in our Borough who have waited many months to finally meet up with family this cannot come soon enough, and that is why we believe that the relatives of the residents of care homes should be prioritised and offered access to tests so they can arrange to visit.  Let’s hope this can happen in time for Christmas.”

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