Use lab space to test NHS staff, hospitals told

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said that hospitals should use spare laboratory space to test self-isolating NHS staff in England for coronavirus.

The latest official death toll from coronavirus in the UK sits at 1,789 (Monday 30 March), leaving the government facing increasing criticism over a lack of testing for frontline staff who could return to work if found clear of the virus.

Testing has predominantly focussed on patients thus far, although NHS England has told hospitals to use up to 15 per cent of their testing capability on staff, if this is possible. Hancock, who is recovering himself, has now urged hospitals to go further and test as many staff as they can, with health officials saying laboratories have the capacity to take on more tests.

Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said if existing NHS pathology labs had unlimited swabs and reagent, there would be enough test machine capacity to process around 100,000 tests a day. However, a ‘reagent and swab shortage is currently limiting this to [around] 13,000 a day’, which aligns with the government’s claim that efforts to increase testing capacity was being hampered by the availability of the chemicals needed to test patients.

Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove admitted that the UK had to go ‘further, faster’ to increase testing and described the daily death toll rise of 381 as ‘deeply shocking’. He added that ‘now is absolutely not the time for people to imagine there can be any relaxation or slackening’ of lockdown measures.

He said: "More NHS staff are returning to the front line, and more testing is taking place to help those self-isolating come back, and to protect those working so hard in our hospitals and in social care. But while the rate of testing is increasing, we must go further, faster."