Director denies Glasgow site has problems with testing capacity

There are no issues with coronavirus testing capacity at a UK Government laboratory in Glasgow, its director has said.

Scottish ministers blamed Sunday’ s late corona virus cases report on capacity issues at the UK Government’ s Lighthouse lab, but the UK Government denied there were any testing capacity problems and described the allegations as “categorically untrue”.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon warned the 316 positive cases figure released on Sunday – significantly lower than in the previous weeks, having not been around this level since the 356 reported on September 27 – should be “treated with some caution due to a processing delay within the UK lab system”.

The laboratory is part of a network of testing facilities around the UK . The Glasgow facility processes around 50,000 tests a day.

Laboratory director Carol C lugs ton told PA news :“We don’ t have problems with capacity, what we do is we report our capacity week to week so our capacity is about 50,000 tests per day.

“Across the UK network there are logistic teams that actually make sure the tests we get sent are in line with our capacity so that we don’ t get more than we can process or that we don’ t get less, that we have unused capacity.

“I don’ t think we’ re finding any problems with capacity. If anything, at the weekend fewer people get tests done so we usually find that Sunday and Monday we’ve usually got less tests coming in for us to analyse.”

Issues at the Lighthouse testing site have been denied.