Bolton Start Well

Background

As Bolton sees a significant rise in coronavirus cases, a cross sector plan is being put into place to help us all pull together to reduce transmission. Lots of activity has taken place / will be taking place in certain communities over the next few weeks.

Testing strategy for education settings

Taking the learning from the recent enhanced testing in targeted areas, from an education perspective we are now looking to focus primarily on increasing LFD testing amongst secondary aged pupils and adults. The wider Bolton community is also being encouraged to really push the uptake of regular LFD testing as the main approach, with targeted areas having mobile ‘pop-up’ PCR testing and vaccination sites to complement this. Note that LFD tests are for staff, parents and secondary aged children.

We have engaged with the DfE to increase the quantity of LFD kits that schools and early years providers are able to order to give you testing kits to pass on to parents. An initial stock will be delivered this week, or in the week after your half-term for schools who are already closed. The attached letter should also be provided with the test kits.

Testing continues to remain voluntary but consistent testing and reporting will really help Bolton to tackle the spread of the virus.

LFD tests are for asymptomatic cases. Anyone with symptoms must access a PCR test through the national portal, and must follow isolation guidance.

Multiagency communications plan

We know that all settings have different ways of communicating swiftly with parents (and in the case of secondary schools, your pupils). We would encourage you to:

• Signpost to the resources on www.bolton.gov.uk – this includes frequently asked questions and information about testing / isolation
• Share relevant Bolton Council social media messaging in your forums
• Create your own social media posts (where relevant) using the below text and image

It’s important that we all continue to take a twice weekly free rapid test, so that the virus spread can be tracked as early as possible.  By tracing it in the borough, we can ensure those who need to isolate do so as fast as possible to help us control the spread.  There is support and advice available here if you do need to isolate.