To ask the Minister of Health whether he will introduce COVID-19 testing on a weekly basis for all carers, regardless of whether they work in residential or domiciliary settings.

Testing in Northern Ireland continues to be a vital tool in our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The current position is that all Health and Social Care (HSC) staff who are symptomatic (or whose household contacts are symptomatic) are eligible for testing in Northern Ireland.

This includes domiciliary care workers who, as essential health care workers, are currently able to access testing either through local HSC laboratories or via the National Testing Programme. Should there be an indication of more than one symptomatic individual among a group of care workers, an appropriate risk assessment will be undertaken by the Public Health Agency with testing of all individuals undertaken as deemed appropriate following the risk assessment.

On the 3 November 2020, I announced that regular COVID-19 testing of staff working in care homes would increase from once every two weeks to once a week.

Routine testing of asymptomatic domiciliary care workers and community health staff is kept under review. As our understanding of this new virus continues to evolve and we learn more about the impact of the virus across different settings, and as new testing technologies emerge and are evaluated for use, we may revisit our policy on routine testing health and social care staff, including the testing of domiciliary care providers.