Guidance
Essential workers prioritised for COVID-19 testing
List of essential workers prioritised for PCR testing for coronavirus (COVID-19).
Applies to England
If you’re an essential worker from the list below and have symptoms of coronavirus, you are prioritised to get a test for coronavirus.
All NHS and social care staff
This includes:
- doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff, including community pharmacists and their staff, students on clinical placements, volunteers and unpaid carers
- the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector
- those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributors of medicines, and medical and personal protective equipment
- NHS Blood and Transplant frontline staff (blood donation staff, specialist nurses for organ donation, staff running therapeutic apheresis services in NHS hospitals)
- those providing ancillary support to NHS workers (such as hotel accommodation for NHS staff)
- personal care assistants
Essential public services staff
This includes:
- prisons, probation, courts and tribunals staff, judiciary
- religious staff
- charities and workers delivering critical frontline services
- those responsible for the management of the deceased
- journalists and broadcasters covering coronavirus or providing public service broadcasting
- public health and environmental staff, such as specialist community public health nursing
Public safety and national security staff
This includes:
- police and support staff
- Ministry of Defence civilians, contractors and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of critical defence and national security outputs and critical to the response to the coronavirus pandemic and EU transition), including defence medical staff
- fire and rescue service employees (including support staff)
- National Crime Agency staff, those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas
- British Transport Police and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency
Transport and border workers
This includes those:
- who keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the coronavirus response and EU transition
- working on transport systems through which supply chains pass
- constructing or supporting the operation of critical transport and border infrastructure through which supply chains pass
Education and childcare workers
This includes:
- support and teaching staff
- social workers
- specialist education professionals
Critical personnel in the production and distribution of food, drink and essential goods
This includes:
- those involved in food production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery
- those critical to the provision of other essential goods, such as medical supply chain and distribution workers, and testing (such as PHE labs), and veterinary medicine
- workers critical to the continuity of essential movement of goods
Local and national government staff
This includes staff critical to the:
- effective delivery of the coronavirus response
- delivery of and response to EU transition, or delivering essential public services, such as the payment of benefits and the certification or checking of goods for import and export (including animal products, animals, plants and food), including in government agencies and arm’s length bodies
Public and environmental health staff
This includes government agencies and arm’s length bodies.
Funeral industry workers
This includes funeral directors and people responsible for the management of the deceased.
Frontline local authority staff and volunteers
This includes:
- those working with vulnerable children and adults, victims of domestic abuse, and the homeless and rough sleepers (and hotel staff supporting these groups)
- voluntary sector organisations providing substance misuse treatment
Utilities, communication and financial services staff
This includes:
- staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure)
- the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage)
- information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the coronavirus response
- essential staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 essential services), postal services and delivery, payments providers and waste disposal sectors
Updates to this page
Published 25 February 2021