Surgeons: Test us every week to ensure people we treat are safe from threat of Covid infection

Hospital surgeons say they should be given weekly Covid-19 tests to allow them to safely operate on patients.

At present, Scottish hospitals are only required to regularly test staff working in high-risk areas including specialist cancer units, long-term elderly care facilities, and long-stay mental health units.

Some health boards have extended staff testing to some other areas, but the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) says they should be given to all surgeons at least once a week.

Professor Michael Griffin, president of the RCSEd, said: “Protecting the patients is paramount because survival after major surgery falls considerably if they contract Covid. By surgery, I mean an operation for the removal of an appendix, gullet or bowel surgery and similar.

“Testing should be carried out weekly at least to ensure that there are Covid-free or low Covid areas for surgery.

“Patients with cancer or emergency surgery need to be given surgery in a safe environment.”

He said deaths in patients who had undergone a major operation rises to between 20 and 30% if they contract the virus around the time of surgery.

Another senior surgeon said: “We need tested and weekly to avoid passing it on to patients. Some of them are rightly asking if we have been tested as Covid-free and fear contracting the virus as they’re most vulnerable.

“We feel at a loss trying to explain to them that we are not being tested when it should be routine.”

Earlier this month Westminster’s Health and Social Care Select Committee said that without routine testing of NHS staff, it risked becoming a Covid-only service this winter.

The Royal College of Surgeons of England is also calling for regular testing of staff.

The Scottish Government said an expert group had recommended the introduction of testing of asymptomatic staff in high-risk areas back in June, and testing had begun in July, but added: “The group did not consider routine asymptomatic testing for all staff an effective or proportionate way to reduce the risk of transmission.

“All staff with symptoms have priority access to the UK Government sites in Scotland and capacity is set aside each day to ensure this access.”