Covid-19: Testing Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department of Health and Social Care
Baroness Barker
Main Page: Baroness Barker (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Barker's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Bethell
The noble Lord is entirely right. Speed is essential and the South Korea example is a good one. More than half of our tests are turned around within 24 hours. I pay tribute to the track and trace team, who handled an extremely complex and difficult laboratory failure last weekend and used innovation to turn around 50,000 tests, the results of which were reliably given to people. However, we will continue to work on shortening the result times and getting the information back speedily so that isolation can happen in a thorough way.
Baroness Barker (LD)
What is the average time between a swab being taken and a patient getting the result, and what is the average time for that test result to show up in national tracking data?
Lord Bethell
The average times are not at my disposal, but I reassure the noble Baroness that more than half the results are turned around within 24 hours. Our target time is currently 48 hours and the vast majority of tests are done within that time. As the noble Lord, Lord Wood, rightly said, speed is of the essence, and we are working hard to compress those times.