£14m tests will tell A&E doctors if it’s Covid or flu

Thousands of single tests capable of quickly establishing if hospital patients have Covid-19, flu or a respiratory virus have been ordered by NHS Scotland.

A £14 million, 18-month contract will deliver between 15,000 to 20,000 tests a month to A&E departments across Scotland to help doctors make better informed and quicker clinical decisions.

The tests are manufactured by American diagnostics firm Cepheid, which claims it takes only 36 minutes to reveal if patients have Covid, flu or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV ). Currently, a number of tests are needed to establish if a patient has Covid, flu or RSV.

Dr John Thomson, a consultant at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, began using the new tests last week. He said: “From an emergency department perspective we will use this to know if someone we’re admitting to hospital is Covid or influenza positive or negative, which dictates what sort of ward they go into in order to prevent cross infection.

“Previously, people would go to an amber ward – Covid status unknown – because we had to send off separate swabs to the lab and it took a couple of hours for results to come back.”

NHS Scotland said: “These rapid tests are for both laboratory-based and point of care testing in hospitals for unscheduled care including A&E. Multiplex testing is used for patients with respiratory symptoms and the results of these tests inform patient placement, management and treatment decisions.

“As with Sars CoV-2 testing, flu testing is essential for clinical diagnosis, treatment, infection prevention and control and patient placement to avoid healthcare-associated infections and possible co-infection with multiple viruses which would have serious consequences.”

The Scottish Government said the single multiplex tests, where used, will “mean there is no longer a requirement for two or more tests to be carried out – one for Covid-19 and a second for other viruses such as flu A, flu B and RSV.”