Rapid ‘lateral flow’ tests to be used before Christmas in Northamptonshire

The county council has been included on a list of authorities in the country to be selected to receive some of the first initial batches of the ‘lateral flow’ tests, which are currently being trialled in Liverpool on a widespread scale.

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has now written to all upper-tier local authority leaders, confirming that all directors of public health will be offered a weekly allocation equivalent to 10 per cent of their population. This follows on from an initial 600,000 being sent out to 50 directors of public health across the country.

The news was welcomed by Northamptonshire’s director of public health, Lucy Wightman, in the latest COVID oversight board meeting this morning (November 19).

She said: “We’re pulling together a plan to use them in different settings in the first place to make sure that we’re comfortable with the processes. It will help us facilitate things like care home visits and help us manage acute outbreaks, and there are lots of uses that will be able to help facilitate services reopening safely and reduce the risk of transmission.

“It will take a little longer to plan a mass testing approach, but that will be our ambition in the long term if it’s ever required. I’m sure people can appreciate the logistics of that alongside mass vaccination are quite challenging, so we’ll be working on that in the background. We hope to facilitate focused testing in particular settings in the next month and before Christmas. ”

The lateral flow tests are throat and nose swabs that are then put into a test solution. Results can be reached within 20 to 30 minutes confirming whether a patient has tested positive for the virus or not. One line confirms that a test is valid, and then a second line will appear should people test positive.

Proactively testing asymptomatic individuals will help identify those who unknowingly have the virus and enable those who test positive and their contacts to self-isolate.

Lateral flow devices do not require a laboratory to process the test. Swabbing and processing of these tests must currently be conducted at a dedicated testing site by trained personnel.

And despite the devices offering a chance to get a clearer local picture of the spread of the virus, Ms Wightman said that their introduction would provide a logistical challenge that should not be underestimated.

She added: “The only things we get supplied with nationally are the tests themselves, personal protective equipment and some devices to record the test results on. All the staffing, liability, logistics, training and storage and everything else is the local system’s responsibility. On top of all we’re doing in managing the pandemic, the lateral flow testing – as wonderful an opportunity it is – is quite a significant draw on resources.”