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Care Opinion

Covid test swabbing at Barnstaple Hospital

Posted By indiayw77

"Covid test swabbing at Barnstaple Hospital"

About: North Devon District Hospital / Covid swabbing unit

(as the patient),

The system at Barnstaple is professional and friendly. It is also very fast. 10 out of 10.

That is great for people who live in Barnstaple. My journey is about 60 miles round trip, and the main A361 to Barnstaple was closed completely, so I did quite a few miles and the whole trip took 2.5hrs. A few weeks ago I had to travel for a swab test which was 160 miles round trip. It was a bank holiday weekend and the entire trip took over 5hrs of non-stop driving. There is a Covid test centre 10 mins from my house. In these days of digital comms we seem to have gone back to the days of taking a sending a message by horseback to the recipient. How hard would it be to allow any official test centre to do the test with a request to email the result to the relevant hospital. This is my 2nd test at Barnstaple and my 3rd overall. 280 miles travelled so far just for the tests.
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Responses

Response from Christine England, Clinical Support Nurse Lead, Covid Swabbing Unit, Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust 2 years ago
Christine England
Clinical Support Nurse Lead, Covid Swabbing Unit,
Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Submitted on 25/06/2021 at 17:39
Published on Care Opinion on 28/06/2021 at 14:57

picture of Christine England

Hi. My name is Christine and I am a nurse at the Covid swabbing team.

Thank you for taking the time to give feedback on our service, and I am glad you found the team professional and helpful.

I do appreciate the inconvenience and time incurred with the long distance you had to travel. We are looking at ways to improve this for patients and are currently trialling same- day testing for some departments, which is to be rolled out across the Trust. If a procedure is booked some time in advance we can also send self-swabbing kits for patients to return to a local community hospital. I am sorry that neither of these options were available to you.

Unfortunately the Covid testing centres are not affiliated to hospitals, and swabs are sent to laboratories across the country. Despite digital technology it would be logistically difficult to deal with the vast numbers tested; and of course a risk of the swab being lost in transit and departments not being informed of the results. I know it seems frustrating, but it is a completely different infrastructure.

We really appreciate your feedback and are constantly looking at ways to improve our service.

Best wishes

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