Covid-19 test results ‘will be turned around in four hours’
THE Welsh Government has announced a £32m investment to speed up turnaround times for coronavirus test results.
Health Minister Vaughan Gething claims the funding boost will deliver faster results for contact tracing and ensure Wales is prepared for any increases in cases during the autumn and winter.
The money will pay for extra staff and equipment for the Public Health Wales regional laboratories based at the University Hospital Wales in Cardiff, Morriston Hospital in Swansea and Ysbyty Glan Clwyd in Rhyl so they can operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It will also go towards the creation of six “hot labs” at acute hospitals across Wales which will have rapid, under four-hour, testing equipment which will operate from 8am to 10pm every day.
The hot labs will be based at: ■ Prince Philip Hospital, Llanelli; ■ Morriston Hospital, Swansea; ■ Princess of Wales Hospital, Bridgend;
■ Prince Charles Hospital, Merthyr Tydfil;
■ University Hospital Llandough; and
■ Grange Hospital, Cwmbran. In addition, new testing equipment will be introduced for other conditions to free up staff to work on Covid-19 testing.
However, the Welsh Government has confirmed that the regional laboratories will not be operating 24 hours until October, while the hot labs won’t be introduced until November.
Mr Gething said: “This investment will ensure we have the laboratory capacity in Wales to deliver our Test, Trace, Protect strategy to keep coronavirus under control, and be ready for the winter.
“I hope we don’t need to use all the testing capacity this investment will create but we have to be prepared. The science tells us the virus will spread more quickly in the colder, wetter months so we can expect an increase in spread later this year.
“This investment will increase our resilience and ensure our testing and contact tracing systems are robust enough to deal with whatever winter brings.
“We all want to be able to return to normal life and to ease restrictions as much as possible. Our Test, Trace, Protect strategy is key to achieving that, by enabling us to quickly identify people with coronavirus symptoms; identify new hotspots and isolate as many contacts as possible.”
Dr Tracey Cooper, chief executive of Public Health Wales, said: “This investment will allow us to make some fundamental changes to our laboratory services that will significantly increase their capacity and resilience, both in the context of the current pandemic and in the longer term.
“We are already working behind the scenes to implement these changes and have recently launched a recruitment drive to recruit up to 160 staff into the new roles made possible by this investment.”
The initial outlay on staffing and new equipment is expected to be nearly £8m and the cost of carrying out tests is expected to vary between £8 and £24m depending on demand.
ONE of the most important aspects of the Welsh Government’s “Test, Trace, Protect” strategy is the ability to get Covid-19 tests processed quickly.
The sooner a positive case of the virus is confirmed in a lab, the sooner contact tracers can find those who have been in close proximity to the infected individual and tell them to self-isolate.
However, over recent weeks the speed at which they are being turned around has been called into question by both opposition parties and the First Minister himself.
According to latest figures released weekly, only around a third of key worker tests processed in NHS Wales labs were returned within 24 hours.
The Welsh Government claims these turnaround times are being “dragged down” by care homes where tests need to be delivered, carried out on site and then picked up by a courier before being sent to labs for analysis.
However, it must also be noted that only around 70% of results in so-called community testing units – mainly used by nurses – are returned within 24 hours, while the figure stands at 88% in hospitals. So there remains significant room for improvement.
Thankfully, a range of measures are now being put in place by ministers to address this poor-to-average performance across the board.
One of them is the introduction of Wales’ first lighthouse lab in Newport which should be up and running by the end of this month.
Not only will this facility help to boost daily testing capacity, but it will also prevent many samples from being sent further afield to lighthouse labs based in England.
And it has now been announced that the Welsh Government will be investing nearly £32m to further speed up result turnaround times.
Extra staff and equipment is being given to three of Wales’ regional laboratories so they can operate 24-7, while six new “hot labs” are being set up at acute hospitals across Wales.
It is claimed these new hot labs will be able to turn around tests in as little as four hours to greatly speed up the entire process.
The big downside is that these will not be established until November; by which time there is always a danger that a second wave of Covid-19 will already be upon us.
Without overly dramatising the situation, speedy turnaround times for testing could prove to be the difference between containing the spread of the virus and more people losing their lives.