The U.K.’s testing program is back in crisis. On Tuesday, Sarah-Jane Marsh, one of the officials in charge of testing, apologized publicly to people who could not get a test, blaming “critical pinch-point” issues in laboratories.

Back in March and April, as the pandemic spiraled out of control, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his team vowed to fix the problem and deliver a “world-beating” testing system. Ministers developed a network of Lighthouse Labs run in partnership with the private sector to scale up testing operations as fast as they could.

Officials have said these Lighthouse Labs can’t cope with soaring demand. Yet the figures suggest there should be plenty of spare capacity in the system.

Just over 227,000 tests were processed on Friday, while official testing capacity stood at 375,000. The figures cover swab tests, which show if someone currently has the virus, as well as antibody and surveillance testing. Johnson has said he wants capacity to hit 500,000 per day by the end of October.

According to some scientists, staffing shortages are now a problem at the Lighthouse Labs, which they say have relied on PhD and post-doctorate students to help process samples. With universities reopening this month, students are leaving the labs to complete their studies, just when demand for tests intensifies.

Allan Wilson, president of the Institute of Biomedical Science, which represents NHS lab workers, said the Lighthouse model was “never really a permanent solution” and many students who staffed the centers were “not surprisingly returning to their normal life.”

Michael Hopkins, from the University of Sussex Business School said the Lighthouse Labs had been “hastily set up with an almost itinerant workforce” who lacked experience.

The Lighthouse Labs are being actively supported by pharmaceutical companies GSK and AstraZeneca, who are providing access to data and resources. An extensive supply chain of resources including support from Amazon, Boots and the Royal Mail, alongside the Wellcome Trust has been established

Three labs were opened as part of a centralised push to increase coronavirus testing. Accountancy giant Deloitte managed the operations. The first lab, in Milton Keynes, was opened on 9 April, followed by Alderley Park in Cheshire on 20 April and a third lab in Glasgow a few days later.

The labs did not follow the same standardised processes, meaning there were disagreements on issues such as when to discard damaged or poorly labelled samples, leading to big variations in the void rates between Milton Keynes and Alderley Park. One source said the rates reached as high as 40 per cent and were still at around 20 per cent earlier this month.

As many staff begin to return to their normal lives, some said they had been unaware private companies were behind the labs and felt “exploited” as the labs now looked to recruit paid staff and expand further.

At this present juncture what CAN she do that she is not doing?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...abs-can-t-cope


So, it seems that the government passed the processing of tests to the private sector and there's been an almighty cock-up .....

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/h...-a9589401.html



I'm sure that most of the country is unaware that test processing is (badly) done by the private sector .....