THE head of a Dorset care home provider has hit out at “incredibly unfair” government system which means staff face a 250-mile round trip to get tested for coronavirus.

This week health secretary Matt Hancock announced a new action plan for social care, which included tests for anyone in the sector who needed one “immediately”.

An email to care homes from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) on Thursday revealed staff across the conurbation would have to drive to Gatwick to receive a test, organised by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

In comparison, NHS hospital staff can be tested at their place of work.

Rachel Dryden, chief executive of Encore Care Homes, who run Great Oaks in Bournemouth, Fairmile Grange in Christchurch and Oakdale in Poole, said she initially thought the email was a mistake.

“This comes off the back of the social care action plan, which was announced on Wednesday by Matt Hancock,” said Ms Dryden.

“There were all these grand promises around social care being valued equally to the NHS. The launch of this ‘care’ brand and access to testing for patients coming out of hospital and going into care homes and this commitment to provide testing for social care workers, which was all very well received.

“When I got the email from the CQC on Thursday night to say your local testing station for our care home in Poole is Gatwick, I was just like ‘this must be a mistake’.

“There is also the fact you can only access the testing in a car. If you think about the profile of our workforce, a lot of them walk to work, a lot of them cannot drive, a lot of them can’t afford to have a car and they certainly can’t afford to make a 250-mile round trip to get tested in Gatwick.

“When you compare that to the NHS where staff are being given access to testing in the hospital, it feels incredibly unfair.”

Ms Dryden said around 12 per cent of Encore’s 400-string workforce are currently self-isolating.

She said social care workers unable to go to work faced tougher financial times being on statutory sick pay.

“One of the cornerstones of this action plan that was released was the launch of this ‘care’ brand and saying social care stands on a par with the NHS but actions speak louder than words,” said Ms Dryden.

“We are calling for our social care workforce to be given the same access to testing as the NHS workforce.

“You could be in a farcical situation where you have two people in family, one works in the NHS and one works in a care home, one person can get tested in their hospital where they work and the other has to travel 250 miles.

“We are looking for a much more workable solution because I do not think it is reasonable to expect people, who often don’t have access to a car, to go that far, particularly when they are possibly ill.

“It is not really achieving the objective of getting people back to work.”

A DHSC spokesperson said: “We have launched the largest network of diagnostic testing facilities in British history to rapidly scale up the number of tests we can carry out each day to get people back to work faster.

“We are working with industry partners to launch around 50 regional test sites at convenient locations across the country by the end of April – 29 are already open – to allow all health and care staff to be tested as quickly as possible.

“We are also rapidly developing a home testing kit and working with Amazon and other commercial partners to reduce the need for frontline workers to travel at all.”

While there were concerns over the testing measures in place, Ms Dryden praised the commitment and work ethic of staff across Encore's care homes.

"They have been absolutely brilliant," said Ms Dryden. "One of the silver linings of this situation is I do believe social care is starting to get a better profile and more respect for the invaluable work we do.

"From my perspective the staff have been amazing. When everyone else is working from home, they go to work and put themselves potentially in harm's way to look after frail and vulnerable people."