Drop in number of tests caused by ‘technical hitch’ in laboratory

THE Government’s failure to maintain levels of testing for coronavirus has been blamed on a commercial laboratory in Northern Ireland, it emerged yesterday.

Testing numbers slumped to 69,500 at one point this week – barely half last week’s high point – before surging by a quarter to 86,500 yesterday after the problem was put right.

Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, said the figure had recovered after a “technical hitch in a lab over the weekend – that is now starting to rise again”.

The testing numbers are still well below the 100,000 daily target set by Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, and the high of 122,000 daily tests last

Thursday. Speaking to the BBC earlier, Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said: “There has been a technical issue in the laboratories. That is now being resolved so that will start to come back up again.”

He added: “The capacity has remained over 100,000 so therefore the capacity at all points in the last few days has been above demand. What we are looking to do is to increase capacity, to increase access for tests for people so more and more people can get it.”

Government sources said there had been a problem with a machine at a commercial laboratory run by Randox, a private firm in Northern Ireland, which had now been rectified.

The source said: “Until the problem was sorted, you could not get more tests through the system, so we had to throttle the number of tests we could let people take.”

A spokesman for Randox said its staff were “working diligently to process all tests in a timely manner, in what is an unprecedented testing programme facing an unprecedented threat”.

Earlier this week Boris Johnson set an ambitious 200,000 daily coronavirus testing target and vowed to “go even higher”. The Prime Minister also said he “bitterly” regretted the spread of the virus in care homes but insisted there had been a “palpable improvement” in recent days.

That came as Baroness Harding, the former chief executive of Talk Talk, was appointed to head up the NHS’S new mass test and trace programme.

‘Capacity has remained over 100,000 so therefore … at all points in the last few days has been above demand’