Shaping Care Home COVID-19 Testing Policy

NCT ID: NCT05639205

Last Updated: 2022-12-09

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

UNKNOWN

Clinical Phase

PHASE3

Total Enrollment

280 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2022-12-31

Study Completion Date

2024-04-30

Brief Summary

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The goal of this interventional study is to investigate whether continued use of regular asymptomatic testing in staff is a feasible, effective and cost-effective strategy to reduce the impact of COVID-19 in care homes.

The trial aims to quantify the benefits and harms of regular asymptomatic testing in care home staff to inform policy. The rationale for regular asymptomatic testing is that it may reduce the risk of severe disease in residents and the frequency/severity of outbreaks.

Participants (care home staff) will perform regular asymptomatic tests for Covid-19. Should they test positive they will be required to refrain from working and be provided with sick pay.

Care providers will be reimbursed for the costs of employing agency staff to cover staff sickness absence that results directly from the trial.

Detailed Description

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To date the evidence based underpinning elements of the intervention has been developed through engagement work with the National Care Forum, senior managers of care homes and three stakeholder events with front-line care home staff. It will be finalised through a series of further workshops. These workshops will 1) consolidate existing insights into routine testing gleaned through past experiences in the COVID-19 pandemic; 2) discuss the intervention prototype; 3) operationalise it in ways which are likely to be acceptable and appropriate within the sector.

The testing intervention will comprise of four modules that will be delivered in combination. Module 1: support payments for staff to enable them to self-isolate when unwell. Module 2: Branding and messaging around testing to promote engagement with testing. Module 3: Accessing training, protocols and planning. Module 4: Regular asymptomatic staff testing for COVID-19 using LFDs.

Asymptomatic testing will be in addition to symptomatic testing for staff and residents, which is standard policy for all care homes in England.

Providers will also receive funding to reimburse costs associated with employing agency staff to cover sickness absence for asymptomatic staff who test positive in the trial.

Non-intervention care home residents and staff will be subject to the testing policy that is in place nationally at the time of the trial. Care home staff in control homes will not receive support payments (Module 1) and testing in control homes will not be supported by branding or messaging (Module 2). The degree to which training and testing protocols are already in place in control homes (Module 3) will be investigated in the stakeholder workshops.

Conditions

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COVID-19

Keywords

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Lateral Flow Device

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

Primary Study Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Blinding Strategy

NONE

Study Groups

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Arm A

LFD testing for Covid-19 with sickness support payment. Care providers will receive funding to reimburse the costs of employing agency staff to cover sickness absence in asymptomatic staff who test positive for COVID.

Group Type ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Lateral Flow Device

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

Regular asymptomatic staff testing with a Lateral Flow Device including support payments if unwell.

Arm B

Usual Care

Group Type NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

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Lateral Flow Device

Regular asymptomatic staff testing with a Lateral Flow Device including support payments if unwell.

Intervention Type DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Only care home staff are eligible to participate in the testing intervention. This includes temporary (agency) staff with no restrictions i.e. catering staff, administrative staff, maintenance staff, in addition to those in a resident-facing role.
* All care home staff, residents, visitors and relatives are eligible to participate in interviews undertaken as part of the process evaluation.
* All care home residents at participating home are eligible for data collection and analysis of the outcomes specified.

Exclusion Criteria

* Visitors, residents and relatives are not eligible to take part in the testing intervention.
* Staff who visit the care home to provide care but are not employed by the care home e.g. GPs, health visitors are not eligible to take part in either the interviews or the testing intervention.
Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Sponsors

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University College, London

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Responsibility Role SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

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Laura Shallcross, Professor

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

UCL

Central Contacts

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Laura Shallcross, Professor

Role: CONTACT

Phone: 0203 549 5540

Email: [email protected]

CCTU Enquiries

Role: CONTACT

Phone: 020 7907 4669

Email: [email protected]

References

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Stirrup O, Blackstone J, Cullen-Stephenson I, Fenner R, Adams N, Leiser R, Krutikov M, Azmi B, Freemantle N, Gordon A, Regan M, Knapp M, Gosce L, Henderson C, Hopkins S, Verma A, Cassell J, Cadar D, Fowler T, Copas A, Flowers P, Shallcross L. VIVALDI-CT shaping care home COVID-19 testing policy: A pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial of asymptomatic testing compared to standard care in care home staff. PLoS One. 2025 Jul 2;20(7):e0324908. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0324908. eCollection 2025.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 40601586 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

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CTU/2022/405

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id