Running an antibody testing clinic during the pandemic

The first in a series of stories we’ll be sharing to look back at the achievements of our staff during the Covid 19 pandemic.

For many of us, the past year will have been one of the most challenging we’ve faced in our lifetimes. Both our personal and professional lives have been turned upside down and we’ve had to deal with a huge amount of change, loss, and uncertainty.

But time and time again, our people have responded with resilience, flexibility and bravery, rising to many different demands and challenges.

As restrictions ease and we look forward to brighter days ahead, we want to share the incredible efforts of our teams, services, and staff, who have either stepped out of their comfort zones to keep things going, or continued to do their day job in much harder circumstances, to enable us to keep being there for those who need us most.

Throughout a summer of celebration, we intend to shine a light on their ongoing successes, and the big and little things they’ve done, and continue to do, to make life a bit easier for service users and colleagues. 

This doesn’t mean we’ll forget the challenges we’ve faced or those we’ve lost.

But it’s also a reminder of what we can continue to achieve, together.


To kick off the series, we’ve been speaking to Dan Taylor, a Specialist Practitioner with our Forward Leeds Hospital In-Reach Team.

He shares his experiences of running an antibody testing clinic in the early days of the pandemic.

“At the start of the pandemic there was a big push for research to find out more about how Covid 19 behaves. As part of this, our Trust was asked to participate in a study looking at antibody prevalence among NHS employees.

“I initially volunteered to support this by helping to take blood, and when the offer came along to run it on the ground, I was really eager to say yes and contribute in any way I could to the Covid response.

“We only had a few days to get everything up and running and to start testing and this posed some pretty big challenges. We needed a space where we could safely socially distance and we needed a team who were able to administer the tests alongside their day-to-day duties. We managed it, and the logistics team provided great support with cleaning rooms and transport.

“At the start, we were only running one clinic from the Newsam Centre in Leeds, but by the end we’d expanded to offer an additional clinic in Leeds and another in York. Our aim was to make sure that every member of staff who wanted an antibody test had the opportunity to have one. It was a mammoth effort by everyone involved and a real achievement.

“Running the clinic required regular meetings, especially at the start, to make sure we kept up-to-date with any changes and developments, which as you can imagine were happening at pace at the start of the pandemic. We worked closely as a team including HR, logistics, admin, infection control and doctors and nurses, to make sure everything remained at the highest standard and to ensure we could offer a sustainable service delivering fast results.

“The clinic was temporary. We set up quickly and finished once the tests had been offered to all staff within our Trust and contractors working on our sites. However, we achieved so much in that short time. I’ve learnt a lot from my involvement in this clinic, and the staff who volunteered to take blood alongside their own busy clinical duties are real unsung heroes.

“I remember the day we hit 1,000 tests (pictured top right). It was a proud moment and this has definitely been an experience I’ll never forget.”