New Lighthouse Lab to boost NHS Test and Trace capacity

[Northerner]

A new Lighthouse Lab near Loughborough will join Britain’s largest network of diagnostic testing facilities in history to increase coronavirus testing capacity.

The new lab will be brought into the lab network this month and will be able to process around 50,000 tests per day by the end of the year.

This comes as the weekly statistics from NHS Test and Trace show that the service continues to reach the majority of those testing positive and their contacts, in week 13 reaching 80% of contacts where contact information was available.

Demand for testing continues to rise, with those tested for the first time increasing by 63% since mid-June.

New Lighthouse Lab to boost NHS Test and Trace capacity

Lab capacity to continue to increase ahead of winter, with a new Lighthouse Lab set to open near Loughborough by the end of September.

www.gov.uk

 

[Bruce Stephens]

This comes as the weekly statistics from NHS Test and Trace show that the service continues to reach the majority of those testing positive and their contacts, in week 13 reaching 80% of contacts where contact information was available.

Presuming "week 13" corresponds to 20-26 August (the latest report available) that's kind of true but not terribly honest. What the report says is

• Of those transferred to the contact tracing system between 20 August and 26 August, 81.4% were reached and asked to provide information about their contacts, compared to 75.2% in the previous week.

• 31,388 people were identified as coming into close contact with someone who has tested positive between 20 August and 26 August. Of these, 69.4% were reached and asked to self-isolate, compared to 77.1% in the previous week.

(From https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...ing-uk-statistics-20-august-to-26-august-2020 )

 

[grovesy]

Time will tell .

 

[mikeyB]

NHS England's attempts at testing and tracing are pitiful. NHS Scotland's figures are closer to 90%. They can always trace back to the origin of any outbreak because the system is local, not centralised like NHS England - or should I say Serco. What's more, there is follow up to check compliance. The figures for NHS England are worthless.

 

[Kirth]

'Lighthouse labs' are only labelled 'NHS' it is run by Serco and Delloite and has nothing to do with the NHS. Don't be fooled the governments smoke and mirrors.
Under Cameron a law was passed that any company doing outsourced NHS work could use the NHS brand.
Many pathology laboratories are now run by private companies. NHS laboratories are subject to the freedom of information act, private labs are exempt and shielded from public scrutiny even though it is public money.
I have work in path labs for over 40 years, path labs in the past 10 years have been merged and downgraded.
Many district general hospitals now only have essential service labs with the bulk of work sent off to big central hub labs running flat out 24/7 which why there was no spare capacity in the system to take on Covid.