Nursery World - Coronavirus: London nursery group forks out £6,000 a week for Covid testing kits

London’s largest nursery group is providing weekly lateral flow tests for its 700 staff, at a monthly cost of £23,584, because private and voluntary settings are not provided with home testing kits, unlike the maintained sector.

Private and voluntary nurseries have to access lateral flow tests themselves by sending staff to community testing sites, unlike schools and maintained nurseries that are sent test kits

As we have reported, early years settings have been struggling to access tests, which has left many with staff shortages.

In addition, many community testing sites are not open early or late enough for nursery staff to access easily.

London Early Years Foundation (LEYF) revealed last month that since the start of 2121, 14 out of 39 LEYF nurseries have closed to allow staff to self-isolate as the new Covid-19 variant ‘spread like wildfire’ among the staff.

Since the news hit headlines, schools and local authorities have reached out to support them.

Today, LEYF’s director of operations, Mike Abbott, told Nursery World that Hammersmith and Fulham local authority had given 300 lateral flow Covid tests to Wandsworth Bridge Nursery.

And CEO June O’Sullivan tweeted that Camberwell Grove Nursery had also been donated 161 tests from Dog Kennel Hill Primary School in East Dulwich.

She tweeted, ‘Hashtag UKGovt have refused to fund testing at PVI nursery settings so @LEYFonline have self-funded £5,896 per week to test out 737 frontline staff, doing our best to keep staff and children safe. HashtagThankYou to local schools and Las who have donated tests. @BorisJohnson – not good enough.’

Register now to continue reading

Thank you for visiting Nursery World and making use of our archive of more than 35,000 expert features, subject guides, case studies and policy updates. Why not register today and enjoy the following great benefits:

What's included