The HSE has said close contacts of COVID-19 patients are less likely to show up for testing than people experiencing symptoms.

Testing centres around the country are reporting non-attendance rates between 15% and 25% - wasting thousands of testing slots every day.

On The Hard Shoulder this evening, HSE Chief Operating Officer Anne O’Connor said, asides from offering encouragement, there is little officials can do to make people show up.

“We don’t really hunt people down to be honest,” she said.

“When people attend a GP themselves because they are experiencing symptoms, they are more likely to attend but really, in terms of the people that are asymptomatic, we have to just message those people and try and encourage them to attend appointments.

“In terms of the scale of what we are trying to do here, for us, it is a public health messaging exercise.

“We have to ensure everyone understands how important this is and really try and reach out to people – but we don’t really pursue people in terms of their non-attendance.”

HSE Chief Operations Officer Anne O’Connor at a COVID-19 operational update, 03-09-2020. Image: Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland

Ms O’Connor said the missed tests are frustrating because there are people waiting who would love to be tested.

“These tests are all schedules automatically so as soon as somebody attends their GP and they are scheduled for a test that happens automatically in our SwiftQueue system so if people don’t turn up their slot is not utilised,” she said.

“We are trying to compensate by trying to maybe over book in certain sites but we are seeing a significant amount of appointments that are not being taken up.

“Clearly those appointments could be used for other people who want to have tests.”

Close contacts

She said close contacts of confirmed cases are schedules for two tests – with non-attendance rates highest for the follow-up.

“People who are close contacts get tested on Day Zero and Day Seven and we would have a higher rate of attendance for the first test but by the time you get to the Day Seven test, we will see that tail off another bit,” she said.

“They kind of feel they don’t have it. This is what is so hard about this. Our Chief Clinical Officer has previously said the people are the worst judges of whether they have it because you may be completely asymptomatic – you may not realise you have it but your test can come back positive.

“For all of us that is a risk because people then are not restricting their movements. They may be back at work; they may be mixing with friends or indeed elderly parents or grandparents and the risk goes up considerably then.”

Employment rights

The other concern is that people may avoid testing for fear of losing out on work.

“There is something there about people maybe being reluctant to be tested because of their employment situation,” she said. “Where maybe they will feel that they won’t get paid if they test positive and they can’t work.

“So, you are into the many societal issues that go beyond the health service.

“Our challenge is to reach out to everybody and assure them that our interest really is public health and to ensure we are protecting people and those around them.”