New Coronavirus Testing Machines Go Live At East Sussex Healthcare Trust

East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust has welcomed the addition of new coronavirus testing machines, which can complete approximately 500 tests a day.

The Trust previously had to wait for the existing in-house technology, which could process around 40 swabs a day, with the remaining samples being sent to a laboratory in Southampton.

New testing machines from PerkinElmer now mean that many more tests can be quickly completed on site.

Dr Joel Newman, Laboratory Director, and Clinical Lead for the Sussex Pathology Network, said:

“These are game changers for the Trust. They significantly speed up our turnaround time and capacity for Covid testing. 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 and in some cases help with more difficult discussions on the next steps of patient care.

"Previously, our in-house testing was very limited with the vast majority of tests going to Southampton with the obvious delay in the physical transportation of the sample to the laboratory.”

After being installed on site by a team of engineers, the new machines have been verified, with screening results cross-referenced against the existing technology. At the same time pathology staff have been trained to use the new machines.

Dr Newman added:

“Our turnaround times will be within 24 hours for all swabs, faster for new admissions, enabling us identify positive patients sooner and act upon on the result. This will helps us minimise the opportunity to spread Covid on to other people and allows us to contain it.

"We were previously sending tests away which meant it could be up to 48 hours before we knew the results.”