Testing chaos could last weeks

Sturgeon says NHS may take responsibility for tests in care homes to try to ease long delays

CRISIS plans are being drawn up in a desperate bid to end the coronavirus testing shambles.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock is proposing a controversial rationing scheme for tests to prevent a nationwide shortage of swabs.

Nicola Sturgeon also revealed the NHS could take over responsibility for care home tests in Scotland after the Mail revealed that staff are waiting an average of 5-7 days to get results.

The First Minister admitted she is concerned by the delays and said she has held ‘constructive’ talks with Mr Hancock about finding a solution.

The UK Government is responsible for the majority of Covid testing in Scotland but its centres have been hit by major delays issuing results in recent days – thought to be linked to a surge in demand caused by the return of English schools.

Mr Hancock is preparing to roll out a ‘priority list’ which could see patients being refused tests to ensure there are enough kits to go round hospitals, care homes, schools and key workers – following concerns about a shortage of slots south of the Border.

An investigation by the Mail yesterday found that 46 out of the 49 virus hotspots in England, including Bolton, Bradford and Oldham, were not offering any tests to the public.

One of the three areas providing tests, Preston in Lancashire, claimed they were only available 23 miles away in Litherland, Merseyside, and not until February at the earliest.

Mr Hancock was yesterday summoned to the Commons to answer an urgent question on the fiasco by Labour and admitted it could drag on for a while.

Asked if the issue would be sorted this week, he replied: ‘I think that we will be able to solve this problem in a matter of weeks.’

Even the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer cannot get a test and his deputy, Angela Rayner, will be standing in at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions as Sir Keir is having to self-isolate.

Robert Kilgour, executive chairman of Renaissance Care, said his staff were waiting an average of 5-7 days to get test results back – with some facing ten-day delays.

He raised concerns that the delays could spark a second wave of coronavirus in care homes as asymptomatic staff may infect residents while they wait for results because they do not know if they have the virus.

Asked yesterday whether she agreed that testing delays could cause a second wave, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘I share a concern about turnaround times for tests that are longer than we want them to be – and that is the issue we are trying to get on top of with the UK Government and resolve.

‘Right now, our care home testing goes through that UK-wide scheme. We are looking – some health boards are looking – to take that into the NHS lab side of it to free up capacity but also to obviously put them more in control of the turnaround times.’

She was unable to confirm what the average delays currently are but insisted it was an ‘improving picture’ since she first revealed major issues on Monday. Problems are centred on the UK Government’s Lighthouse Lab network – which includes a unit in Glasgow – and the First Minister said ‘too many’ tests for the virus are not being processed quickly enough.

Miss Sturgeon spoke to Mr Hancock and Dido Harding, the head of the UK testing system, on Monday night ‘to seek assurances that Scotland will continue to get fair access to the UK-wide laboratory capacity’.

She said: ‘I have a concern about the capacity constraints right now with the UK-wide system and for Scotland in recent days.

‘This has not been an issue of access to testing slots at regional testing centres or mobile testing units but instead it has been one of access to sufficient Lighthouse Laboratory processing. It is this that has led to a backlog in the system and longer turnaround times for tests than we we want.

‘As this is a UK-wide system we cannot resolve this on our own.’

Figures yesterday showed that 227,075 tests were carried out across the UK within the previous 24 hours, down from 231,969 on Monday and 250,839 on Sunday.

It is well short of the UK Government’s target to offer up to half a million tests by the end of next month and four million by February, in ‘Operation Moonshot’.

Last night, the former health secretary Ken Clarke accused ministers of ‘irritating’ the public and spreading ‘disillusion’ by making impossible promises on testing.

He added: ‘Ministers have put forward bold forecasts about testing without realising that the delivery would be extremely difficult.’’

‘I share a concern about turnaround times’

AS coronavirus tightened its grip on the country in spring, the nation was promised a ‘world-beating’ test and trace system to help bring it under control.

But now, as the virus quickly regains a foothold, it’s all too painfully clear that this pledge remains woefully unfulfilled. In fact, it’s nothing more than a woolly aspiration, mired in chaos and delays.

In those ghastly early months of 2020, with swab numbers pathetically low, the Daily Mail campaigned for the Government to implement exhaustive screening to halt the pandemic’s spread.

In a herculean effort, health Secretary Matt hancock transformed the country’s capability in less than a month. Impressively, we have now carried out the most tests in europe – 20million.

But the ‘world-beating’ system ministers promised by June has not materialised. Instead, it has been plagued by problems.

True, capacity is at its highest ever – at 320,000 swabs a day. But as infections rise, thousands with symptoms can’t get tested unless willing to travel hundreds of miles. Demand has surged. Children have returned to school, picking up sniffles and prompting anxious parents to fear they’ve caught Covid. Adults have mingled more as lockdown eased. And swabs are being rolled out, finally, in care homes.

But scandalously, the Government’s laboratory network can’t cope. Staff shortages and bottlenecks in processing tests have a damaging knock-on effect.

healthy nhS staff can’t return to work, operations are cancelled, patients turned away and schools affected.

Mr hancock has now pledged to clean up the mess. Doctors and nurses will get priority testing – while nicola Sturgeon is investigating the use of nhS laboratories to take up the strain.

Reliable mass testing is the only way to save lives, halt the virus, take the brakes off the economy – and vanquish the feeling that we’ve been here before.