Coronavirus daily testing target figures scrapped as they are a ‘distraction’ – 921 carried out in last reportable day

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This article is old - Published: Monday, Apr 20th, 2020

The First Minister has said that in Wales COVID-19 has ‘stabilised’ and that new admissions for the virus had started to decline, with that pattern persisting over the weekend.

Speaking at this afternoon’s daily press conference First Minister Mark Drakeford said that “we can draw some further confidence” from the decline in the figures.

During the press conference the First Minister asked about the rapid review of testing, which saw the outcomes announced yesterday, and also about testing targets.

Mr Drakeford said: “When will we start to see the impact of the results of the rapid review? I hope we will begin to see them during this week.

“We’ve had a meeting this morning, involving the military, to turn the recommendations of the review into actions on the ground and we focused this morning on how we can streamline the path from the person who needs the test to getting that test done, because as you all know, at the end of last week, particularly, we had tests available that weren’t being taken up.

“That was partly because of the complexity of the system. We are using military planners to help us to streamline that system as best we can.

“You still have to have safeguards in the system, you’ve still got to make sure that people turn up at the right place, at the right time, have the right to test for the right person and that does take a bit of organising, but we are confident that we can do it in a more streamlined way.

“We’re not going to get to the 5000 figure that we had hoped to get to, by the middle of this month.

“What we’ve said in the rapid review is, is that we will report every week on the number of tests available in the NHS in Wales on a daily basis, the number that are being taken up and the plans that we have to employ increase that number over the week ahead.”

Mr Drakeford was asked if new targets would be stated, however that won’t be the case: “No, we’re not going to do that. Professor Kerry Phillips in a BBC interview yesterday from Swansea University said that he thought setting a number had become a distraction.”

“I’m not going to do that again. But we will report every week, giving people the actual numbers. So we can see the pattern for themselves, as we do what we want to do to increase the number of tests and increase the number of those tests that are being used for the right people and for the right purpose.”

The previous 5,000 a day target “hasn’t turned out to be achievable in practice, partly because some of those things are outside our own control”.

The last set of data says 921 tests took place in the last reportable day, out of a believed 1,300 ish capacity.

We asked the First Minister as the UK Government have announced opening of ‘mega lab’ in Alderley Park in Cheshire (50 miles away from Wrexham) will any welsh tests be sent there rather than Cardiff over the coming weeks before the North Wales facility opens?

The First Minister said: “My understanding is that the mega lab opened properly yesterday. So it’s very early days there.

“I generally want to make the point from the government’s point of view the border between England and Wales is not a decisive matter in fighting Coronavirus. Coronavirus is a global issue. We don’t ask ‘is the facility in England? or is it in Wales?’ We ask ‘is it the best facility for us to use?’.

“At the moment we’ve been testing people and the test results have been established here in Cardiff. They don’t distinguish between tests that come from different parts of Wales. Everybody gets a completely fair shot at those facilities. If there are facilities elsewhere, and we’re able to use them, then the border will not be a barrier to that happening as far as the government is concerned.”

You can view the full brief from today, along with the Q&A session on the below embed: