Doctors have told employers to stop forcing employees to test for COVID-19 before returning to work.

Key points: Employers told to stop forcing staff to test for COVID-19 before returning to work

Employers told to stop forcing staff to test for COVID-19 before returning to work Patients who display any respiratory symptoms forced to wait outside Leichhardt clinic.

Patients who display any respiratory symptoms forced to wait outside Leichhardt clinic. Businesses told to focus on measures like social distancing

Adelaide GP Chris Moy said patients with minor respiratory symptoms had been told by their employer that they could not return to work until they had tested negative to coronavirus.

Dr Moy said the requests were clogging up the system and putting GPs under pressure.

"To all the employers — stop it. Please do not do this," said Dr Moy, who also chairs the Australian Medical Association's ethics committee.

"It's not helping and we need you all to stop it.

"Anybody with a sniffle or even people that have no symptoms are being directed to have these tests, outside of the current criteria.

"It's not helpful to do random tests because we are going to burn up test kits and we're going to burn up protection equipment."

Dr Chris Moy has asked employers to stop asking workers to take COVID-19 tests. ( ABC News: Claire Campbell )

The ABC has learned of at least three major businesses, including an HR business, that have directed staff with upper respiratory symptoms to get cleared of COVID-19 before they can return to work.

Penny Mills manages Leichhardt General Practice in Sydney's inner west and said the clinic had been swamped with concerned patients.

"We have the worried well, we have people who have legitimately just come off a plane, we have people who've been travelling who have mild symptoms," she said.

"We've basically got everybody and anybody who is in doubt and thinks that they may have contracted this disease calling us for advice."

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Ms Mills said GPs had flatly refused to give clearance to people seeking COVID-19 tests because their employer had requested it.

"Unless they've actually got symptoms that means it's necessary to have that test ... it's a waste of resources and a drain on the pathology labs," she said.

"They [the GPs] are basically saying 'no, they're not going to give them medical clearance'."

Ms Mills said the requests added to the pressure already being felt by GPs across the country.

Her practice is directing patients who display any respiratory symptoms to wear a mask and wait outside the clinic.

It has also had to divert GPs from clinical work so that they can triage patients over the phone.

Dr Harry Nespolon said COVID-19 testing kits are limited in Australia. ( Supplied )

Harry Nespolon is the president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and said there was little public health benefit from widespread "low value" COVID-19 testing.

"The number of [COVID-19] test kits in Australia is quite limited," Dr Nespolon said.

"These tests should be used for patients who really are at high risk of having the coronavirus and for clearing patients who have had the coronavirus and need to have two clear tests before they can be let out into the community."

Dr Nespolon said employers and businesses should instead focus on implementing social distancing measures, supplying hand sanitiser and allowing employees to work from home where possible.

"Spend time thinking about how you can arrange your workplace to cope with something that's probably going to go on for at least another four to six months," he said.

It is a message echoed by Ms Mills, whose clinic has postponed non-urgent appointments for pap smears and skin checks so its doctors can cope with the influx.

"If the virus keeps throwing curveballs like it is, I don't think anybody can be totally prepared," she said.