Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 13 January 2021
I will make a couple of points on that. If the overall thrust of Ms Baillie’s question is drawn from what the Rt Hon Gordon Brown said yesterday, I think that we dealt with that at the briefing; by and large, it is statistically not credible.
However, there are other points in what she said that I want to address. The numbers that she quoted referred to polymerase chain reaction tests and not tests that are conducted through lateral flow devices; we are working to make sure that those numbers come through, too. It is primarily lateral flow devices, backed by PCR testing, that are the central component of the increase in asymptomatic testing in care homes and communities. In the next couple of weeks, we will introduce a further expansion to our testing of asymptomatic people in the community, based on the clinical advice that I receive, to enable us to use that approach to track down further positive cases.
It is undoubtedly true that the numbers of PCR tests that Ms Baillie has quoted are not using the full capacity of either the Lighthouse lab in Glasgow, of which we have a population share, or the increased NHS PCR processing capacity. That is largely person driven: people who feel that they have symptoms book tests; they drive the use of those labs. However, the use of NHS labs will increase as we finish off moving all care home PCR weekly testing to those labs.
Part of what we will introduce will result from a review that we are doing now, of how much more we can proactively use PCR processing and tests—that is both PCR testing and asymptomatic testing—to help us chase down more of the virus in particular areas. That is, either whether the numbers are stubbornly high—as we were doing before Christmas—or where we believe that there is inevitable close contact, such as around particular employers where we want to be able to keep testing to help them to be sure that their workplaces are as safe as they can be.