STURGEON Hancock tried to cut back on Scots testing due to UK backlog
Minister blocks Westminster move
NICOLA Sturgeon has claimed her government saved Scotland from Matt Hancock’s plan to limit the number of people having a Covid test.
The First Minister said the UK Health Secretar y proposed limiting the number of slots available for testing because of a backlog in unprocessed tests.
But his Holyrood counterpart Jeane Freeman “managed to avoid that happening” in Scotland during negotiations over the weekend, Sturgeon said.
The UK Government processes the majority of Covid-19 tests carried out in Scotland but a UK- wide “demand issue” has been causing delays for patients waiting to receive their results.
Speaking at the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing, Sturgeon said: “We were concerned over the weekend that one of the ways the UK Government was trying to deal with the backlog was to restrict access to testing, and the Health Secretary managed to avoid that happening in Scotland.”
Sturgeon said she has “serious concern” about the testing backlog and urged Hancock to share the “full scale and nature of issues they are facing” so her government could help to fix the problems.
She added: “There was a proposal over the weekend that the available slots at mobile testing units and regional testing centres in Scotland would be reduced and the Health Secretary managed to avoid that happening so that we retained full capacity for Scotland.
“We have no indication at the moment that there is any significant issue in Scotland with people accessing testing slots.”
Sturgeon added: “The issue that we do appear to be suffering some impacts from, and again it’s a UK-wide issue, is a backlog in tests being processed that is then leading to a longer turnaround time.”
Freeman said she had “constructive conversations” with Hancock and her Welsh
counterpart Vaughan Gething about the backlog, which she said was being caused by rising demand and “an issue with the speed and capacity of processing the tests”. She added: “I was pleased that we managed not to have the restrictions on access to testing slots that were originally being proposed, but this is work that we need to continue because we need to try as best we can to work cooperatively and to resolve this situation.”
The concerns about test results were raised after Sturgeon announced 70 new coronavirus cases north of the border in the previous 24 hours, but said she believed the figures were based on incomplete data due to issues with the testing system.
The additional positive cases account for 2.7 per cent of newly tested individuals, down from 3.2 per cent on Sunday.
No deaths of confirmed Covid- 19 patients were recorded into Monday and the number of fatalities under this measure remains at 2499. There were 264 people in hospital confirmed to have the virus yesterday, up by five in 24 hours.
Of these patients, seven were in intensive care, the same as the previous day.
The First Minister also said more than 900,000 people have downloaded the Protect Scotland coronavirus contact tracing app since its launch last week.
She said it was believed this was enough for the technology to begin working, but urged those who have not downloaded the app to do so.
The UK Department for Health and Social Care has said laboratories were processing more than a million tests a week and that testing capacity was being targeted “at the areas that need it most, including those where there is an outbreak, and prioritising at- risk groups”.