Government ‘super lab’ doing so few tests that scientists leave at noon
Lack of samples being sent for analysis means vital job ‘feels like a leisurely jog rather than a marathon’
staff are being sent home early because there is so little to do and work is like a “leisurely jog rather than a marathon”.
Gianmarco Raddi, a molecular biologist volunteering at the Milton Keynes “Lighthouse Lab”, said as few as 1,000 swabs have been analysed for Covid-19 in a single day, dramatically lower than the “tens of thousands” it was told it would be processing.
Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, opened the site nine days ago declaring it the first of three such laboratories which would make up the “biggest diagnostic lab network in British history”.
Despite the minister saying each laboratory would have “industrial capacity” to test samples from patients and front-line NHS staff each day, Mr Raddi has told how academics and lab technicians are sent home after just four hours because so few swabs are being sent there for analysis.
Only 18,665 tests were carried out in the 24-hours up to midday on Thursday, despite the country having the capacity to conduct 38,000 tests a day. The three new super laboratories, based in Milton Keynes, Cheshire and Glasgow, had been set up to help meet Mr Hancock’s target of testing 100,000 people a day by the end of April.
But Mr Raddi, who started at the lab on April 6, said his experience led him to believe “the country’s capacity to test for coronavirus is being wasted”.
Writing on the Guardian website, the University of Cambridge student doctor said work started at 8am and was often over by midday because so few samples were being sent in.
“All systems are go,” he wrote. “Then comes the call: ‘We are finished. No more swabs. You can go home.’ ”
He said: “We are ready. Why aren’t we being sent more swabs?”
He continued: “Our shifts were meant to be excruciating 12-hour marathons. In reality, they are more like laid-back morning jogs. Dozens of academics and laboratory personnel from all over the UK [then] languish in a hotel with nothing to do.”
Laboratory apparatus has been donated to the lab by numerous universities and private companies to help ramp up the country’s ability to test for coronavirus, particularly for NHS staff who may be unnecessarily self-isolating.
However, Mr Raddi said: “Millions of pounds of equipment borrowed from universities and companies rest silently in the evening hours, when the noise of our collective toil should be deafening.”
He added: “We were promised 5,000 samples ‘to begin with’. We never saw those numbers. They told us we should prepare for a 24-hour operation, but we are done in four or five.”
Despite being told the lab would end up being able to analyse 30,000 samples a day, he claimed “just over 1,000 samples” were processed on Tuesday.
Mr Raddi wrote: “Some days, we have been told that more than 4,000 swabs were offered, but people did not take advantage of them.
“Fine – but surely those swabs could be repurposed, and the spare capacity redirected? And even if test numbers do pick up today, or tomorrow, the rate of increase is far too slow for both the scale of this emergency and what our laboratories can handle.”
Dame Donna Kinnair, of the Royal College of Nursing, told the Commons health committee that “unclear” guidance on how NHS staff should get tested was contributing to how so few people were giving samples.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman later said: “There hadn’t been as much demand from NHS workers as we thought, which is not a criticism, just a fact.”