COVID-19: Nurseries angry over government's refusal to give PVI nursery staff home test kits

Early years leaders have reacted angrily to the government's announcement that all PVI early years workers must attend community testing centres while maintained nursery school workers will get home test kits delivered to them.

This means the majority of early years practitioners working in the private voluntary and independent (PVI) nurseries, need to travel to testing sites during working hours.

In the announcement, the Department for Education states ‘Primary schools with attached early years settings will receive sufficient test kits to test both their primary and early years staff. Maintained nursery schools will also receive testing kits to offer to their staff. Private early years providers will continue to be prioritised for coronavirus testing through the NHS testing programme.’

June O’Sullivan, chief executive of the London Early Years Foundation took to Twitter saying: ‘#earlyyears excluded from access to lateral test kits by @educationgovuk Given to maintained nurseries and primary schools only. Do our staff not count? This segregation must stop. Bad for children and lousy for the sector. #vaccines#testing.’ In a separate tweet, she added, ‘PVI settings - pop along to a testing hub –hmm, when, how, at what time..?’

Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA), said: "This announcement once again shows that the Department for Education has total disregard for the pressures on PVI nurseries and the whole early years workforce. Promises of access to mass-testing for all have unravelled with different treatment for those in maintained settings compared with the rest of the sector.

“Excluding the majority of the workforce from receiving at-home tests available to those in the maintained sector is unfair, irresponsible and neglectful of a sector that is being asked to go above and beyond for our children. If distribution is an issue we have suggested using hubs as collection sites for the stay at home kits so that nurseries can pick them up to distribute to staff.

“Ministers must urgently find a way to live up to their words when they promised asymptomatic testing for all in the early years sector.”

'It is a complete insult'

The community testing means all PVI staff will have to take time off during the day to attend test sites. The Early Years Alliance called it a “complete insult” and urged the government to rethink this "appalling decision".

Neil Leitch, its chief executive, said: “It is a complete insult to find out that the DfE's promise to roll out mass asymptomatic testing in the early years in fact only applies to the maintained sector, with private and voluntary providers once again left to fend for themselves.

"All early years providers have been asked to remain open to children and families during national lockdown. How can it be right, only maintained nurseries and nursery classes will - like primary schools - have testing kits delivered direct to their doors, while those working in PVI settings are simply told access the same testing centres open to the general public?

"The government claims PVI providers will have 'priority' access to NHS testing, but we know from previous experience that such guarantees all too often fail to materialise in reality.

"We urge the Department for Education to rethink this appalling decision as a matter of urgency and ensure that all early years providers are treated fairly and equally."

As part of the joint #ProtectEarlyYears campaign, NDNA, PACEY and the Early Years Alliance have called for access to mass testing for early years practitioners.

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