Self-isolation for social care staff

Donna Bell, Director, Mental Wellbeing and Social Care, Scottish Government, has issued a letter outlining the current self-isolation policy for social care staff.

With the increasing number of COVID-19 cases here in Scotland, and with the appearance of the Omicron variant, the First Minister has outlined enhanced measures with regard to self-isolation for the general public. However, because of pressures on our already fragile health and social care system, there has been one important addition to the current guidance for social care staff:

This existing isolation policy for staff who are household or passing contacts of covid-19 positive cases, exempts them from the requirement to self-isolate for 10 days when they:

• are double-vaccinated;
• are asymptomatic and remain asymptomatic,
• undertake PCR test (which returns a negative test result before returning to work), and;
• undertake daily LFD testing for the remainder of the 10 day period.

The important addition to this is that staff must now also have had their booster vaccine.

In accordance with the terms of this existing policy and the new addition, staff are ordinarily expected to return to work if they meet the conditions above and comply with the testing requirements set out.

You can read the letter to social care colleagues here.