Covid-19: Test Results

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Scriven]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what immediate changes they are making to improve the speed of test results for COVID-19.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Bethell) (Con)]

My Lords, in the last two months we have responded to the rising demand for tests, the rising infection rates, the need to protect the front line in health and social care, the need for clinical trials for vaccine-to-medicines, outbreak control and surveillance by doubling the number of tests to 360,000. This has impacted turnaround times, which is regrettable, but we are focused on increasing capacity to raise efficiency, investing in the logistical backbone and encouraging users to the weekends, which will bring turnaround times down to the objective of next-day results.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, this morning I spoke to Allan Wilson, the president of the Institute of Biomedical Science, which represents 20,000 professional lab staff. He wrote to the department in early April to offer his free advice on how to improve the system and get a speedy testing system. Seven months later, the department responded with a letter advising him to go to the government portal for public contracts. Will the Minister now agree to meet the person who probably has the most experience of labs up and down the country? Why are the Government shunning Mr Wilson of the Institute of Biomedical Science in favour of paying £700,000 a day to management consultants?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am distressed to hear the anecdote that the noble Lord has just shared with us. We embrace the support and help of anyone who steps forward, particularly someone such as Mr Wilson, who clearly has an enormous amount of expertise. I would be delighted if he would write to me personally and I would be very prepared to meet him. I would also like give massive thanks to all those from all the relevant logistical, pathology, military and medical sciences who have formed an organisation practically the size of Tesco, which is what the national diagnostic system now looks like. It is only with the support of British industry, universities and business that we have been able to build this up and we are enormously grateful for that support.