Testing programme is being delayed by sample ‘hiccups’

A PROFESSOR in charge of one of the Government’s testing laboratories has said the testing programme is being held up by people not attaching barcodes to swab tubes properly and not screwing on lids.

Prof Alan Mcnally – who is infectious disease lead at the Milton Keynes Lighthouse Lab for Covid-19 – said the vast majority of tests were turned around quickly, but that there were “hiccups” that delayed the process.

The Government has pledged to hit 200,000 tests a day by the end of the month, but some tests are taking days to process as opposed to the target, which is hours.

Prof Mcnally told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There are very valid reasons for these tests taking longer.

“One of the things that really hold us up is when people haven’t applied the barcodes properly to the sample tubes – that can slow down the turnaround time of samples quite significantly.

“Wrapping the label around the tube rather than putting the label on the longitude along the tube means we can’t automate that sample. It means we have to run that manually, which takes longer to run those samples.

“We also get samples where the lid hasn’t been screwed on properly.

“This means the sample leaks out and we have to try to recover it so we can test it. There will be occasions where it takes longer to test, and usually it’s because of small hiccups like that.”

Prof Mcnally said that people testing themselves at home without supervision may be exacerbating the problem by not reading instructions carefully.

He said: “I’m one of 54 on shift who have just finished, and another shift of 56 have just come in to replace us, who will now do a 12-hour day shift and that rolls 24/7. We’ll process anywhere between 20,000 and 30,000 samples a day. The effort is Herculean, and all these people are volunteers as well.”

Due to the snags, some tests take days to turn around as opposed to hours, but Prof Mcnally said: “I think you have to remember how many tests are being run.”.

The 100,000-a-day target “doesn’t matter” according to Prof Mcnally, who said the important thing was who was being tested and for what reason.

“I just wish we could focus more on how can we use that testing capacity intelligently,” he said.