Northampton hospital can now get test results on new Covid-19 sufferers in just four hours

Covid-19 patients at Northampton General Hospital are being fast-tracked through a new rapid testing process in its own labs.

Turnround times for swabs has been cut from two days to just FOUR HOURS so sufferers can get life-saving treatment quicker.

And once up to speed, microbiologists at the Cliftonville site are aiming to process 100 tests every day using highly-accurate, state-of-the-art equipment.

Dr Davis Thomas, Divisional Director, said: “By having this rapid testing facility on site, we can make sure our patients are on the correct treatment pathway.

"With a quicker diagnosis, we know which wards our patients need to go to so we can provide the best care for them in the right place.

"This rapid diagnosis will help our teams to plan for surgery, make the best use of personal protective equipment and in some cases help with more difficult discussions on the next steps of patient care.

"As well as improving our patient experience by having these results back so quickly, we can also contribute to our research work in the NHS in clinical trials being done for treatments for Covid-19.”

“We are incredibly proud of the teams in the laboratory and those in the hospital who have supported us with getting this testing up and running. We completed over 170 tests in the first three days and hope to scale up this testing soon.”

Testing has been a hot topic since the coronavirus first hit Britain with a vengeance last month with critics pointing to the Government failing to do enough.

It was revealed that Northampton medics were flying samples to a lab in Germany the hospital had a previous partnership with because it returned its results in half the time taken by Public Health England.

A new Luminex Aries Molecular Diagnostic Platform can now process tests for the virus on site and with even more accuracy as it targets a gene unique to the Covid-19 virus.

Once in the laboratory, the team use the new machine to extract and test for the presence of the virus and deliver results back to the clinical teams, usually within four hours.

The hospital can test over 100 patients per day and will gradually increase testing capacity in the coming weeks and months.

Latest NHS figures show the rate of new infections in Northamptonshire's two acute hospitals have slowed recently.

The number currently stands at 990 in Northampton and at Kettering General Hospital since the outbreak first hit the county on March 3 and is due to be updated later today.

Just 45 new cases were confirmed in the previous five days before the data was collated at 9am yesterday (Monday April 27). That compares with a rise of 283 over a similar period between April 6 and 10, just as the pandemic was approaching its peak in the UK.