Thomson Screening calls on DfE and NHS Digital to reduce the burden on schools by making it easier to bulk upload COVID testing data

Thomson Screening is calling on the Department of Education (@educationgovuk) and NHS Digital to help reduce the burden on schools as a result of lateral flow testing administration.

Marta Kalas, co-founder of Thomson Screening says:

“Schools are required to keep their own records of the tests carried out and then they need to manually enter the data into NHS Test & Trace. This means duplication of information and time. It’s estimated that it takes around six extra minutes to add the data for each child tested. With schools testing 100s of children, this adds up to a huge, and unnecessary administrative burden. Time that could be better spent teaching.

“Although the option for digitally bulk uploading all registrations and tests has recently become available for schools, the process has not been publicised and is difficult to access. For example, the information schools need in order to use this option is not included in the user guides. Based on our experience helping schools with their testing administration, we’re hearing that many are finding it incredibly difficult to access the service and are using valuable time having to manually duplicate data.

“We are calling on the Department of Education and NHS Digital to provide a much more modern and user-friendly process of providing results in bulk. This would be a win-win, for schools and the government.”

Marta Kalas is cofounder of Thomson Screening, which provides software to automate and manage health screening within schools and workplaces. Its technology platform, ‘SchoolScreener’ delivers automated and scalable administration of large scale COVID-19 testing including staff/patient feedback and outcome analytics.