Staff at the NHS have stated that they are unable to obtain lateral flow tests. This is despite some staff being off work, despite having not tested positive for covid. It was disclosed today that many hospitals were cancelling procedures and appointments due Omicron.
Royal College of Nursing and British Medical Association have asked the government to prioritize health workers for quick tests in order to reduce staffing problems in the NHS, which has one-tenth of its staff off sick.
Today’s Government website has been removed from LFTs. At least six dozen NHS trusts in England indicated that they might not be able to provide vital care. Doctors and nurses claim they are now scrambling to get tests online, just like the millions of Britons.
According to pharmacies, it might take them up to a week to receive new kit supplies due to supply chain shortages over Christmas. The company that is responsible for dispensing the kits shut down for four consecutive days during the holidays.
All three types of hospital doctors: GPs and nurses who care for cancer patients. They all stated that they have been in close contact with covid cases and are now stuck at home. However, they cannot get sufficient lateral flow testing to check daily whether they are.
The problem has been made worse by the inaccessibility of PCR testing, which is not available to NHS staff.
Doctors, nurses, and other members of the health care system can obtain LFTs at their workplace if necessary. Some larger trusts offer on-site testing. However, all UK citizens must follow the same procedure.
One medic tweeted last night: ‘9 hospitals have now declared critical incidents and NHS staff are still wearing surgical masks and can’t get hold of lateral flow tests. It’s a perfect storm. A s**t storm’. Another tweeted: ‘Current policy in my trust is if you have been near someone who has tested positive, you must lateral flow for 10 days & isolate from other staff on breaks. There are 7 available lateral flow tests, but none nearby. Boris Johnson, can you help?’.
A doctor wrote that @sajidjavid the education secretary had 31 million lateral flows tests for schools. I’m a GP. Our staff and I can’t get any. If we can’t test we can’t work safely. We urgently need to have secure supplies of Lateral flow testing for NHS staff’.
The pharmacies that have exhausted their testing resources say they may not be able to get more for weeks.
There were again no lateral flow test available today on the Government website. The NHS also has to use them.
Doctors, nurses, and NHS staff claim that they are unable to obtain the necessary tests.
Boris Johnson had promised that 100,000 of his critical workers would be subject to lateral flow testing every day as part of a Government effort to safeguard key services. However, this was not for the more than 1million NHS staff.
Next week, the samples will be sent to food processing personnel, border force officers, and air traffic controllers.
Boris Johnson said the Government was ‘acting to protect critical national services, keep supply chains open and fortify our NHS to withstand the pressures ahead’.
‘We’ve identified 100,000 critical workers in areas from food processing to transport to our border force,’ the Prime Minister said. ‘And from January 10 we’ll be rolling out lateral flow testing for all these workers.’
Ministers are hopeful that the tests will not only stop workers being isolated unnecessarily but also prevent spread of diseases.
The Daily Telegraph reports that the rules for covid testing will be relaxed in order to reduce isolation times.
People with lateral flows that are positive but do not show symptoms may be advised they don’t require a followup PCR test. The self-isolation time can therefore be shorter by a few days.
The abuse is coming from angry customers, who have not been able to access free lateral flow test kits for their pharmacies. A health chief said that this has led to a surge in harassment of pharmacy staff.
Some Britons have claimed that they could not get lateral flow tests from their local pharmacies in the past two weeks due to shortages of the swabs.
People are unable to place tests online due to the issue, which is believed to have been caused by problems with distribution in Government’s free test program.
Some pharmacies are also required to display signs warning that there will be no free test.
Although supplies are still considered ‘patchy, pharmacist bosses warned that employees are being subject to ‘unfair and abusive’ customer behavior if they aren’t able to get testing kits.
MailOnline spoke with Dr Leyla Hanbeck, chief executive of the Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies. She said that until yesterday there was still a patchy supply of medicines. These days, the situation has not improved.
This unfair situation means that ‘Pharmacies have to endure a lot from the public in terms of aggressive behavior and abuse.
The demand is high as the guidelines of government place a lot emphasis on testing to help with self isolation. Therefore, Omicron cases have high prevalence and people depend on these tests for their everyday lives.
A few pharmacies were forced to post signs informing customers that they no longer have free test (see Library image).
Hannbeck insists that pharmacies remain the “right place” to sell lateral flow tests.
She added: ‘They are very accessible and also in hard to reach communities — and for people who cannot go online such as the elderly and those who don’t have access to internet pharmacies are the best option.
MailOnline was informed by Dr Leyla Hanbeck, chief executive of the Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies that the supply of pharmacies had been limited up to yesterday.
“In addition to monitoring the supply, we can also ensure controlled supply.”
These comments were made by Dr Hannbeck as yesterday’s revelations emerged that the only company responsible for the distribution of lateral flow tests for pharmacies was shut down for 4 days during the Christmas period. It had received 2.5 million test results.
Alliance Healthcare has been accused of verbally abuse by pharmacists after being ‘closed down’ for Christmas.
Since he had just returned from vacation, the boss at Covid Tests Ltd. refused to make any comment.
Pablo Rivas (Chief Operating Officer, Alliance Healthcare UK), the only distributor of LFTs for pharmacies across the country, stated that he didn’t know anything about the crisis as he just returned from “somewhere nice”.
When asked if the Government was aware of plans to close the company for the holiday period, he replied that all inquiries had to be made through the press office. However, he stated that he just returned from vacation so he doesn’t really know much. It is necessary to put the firm in quarantine.
Alliance Healthcare’s spokesperson later stated that they were informed by the Government that the company planned to close down for 4 days starting December 25, 2010.
Alliance Healthcare spokesperson stated that Alliance Healthcare had posted the Christmas Bank Holiday Opening Hours on its website, 26 November. UKHSA was aware of the closure plan and multiple PSNC messages were sent to pharmacies.
LFTs have proved difficult to obtain for millions of people. However, some are trying to make a profit from the free packs that the government has given to them. All costs paid by taxpayers.
Alliance Healthcare provided 9 million lateral flows tests in the UK to UK community pharmacies over the week that began 20 December. Of these nearly half were delivered on the pharmacy’s next delivery (Alliance Healthcare delivers lateral flow tests as part of its daily delivery service) and the rest delivered over the following 2 days, all within the 72-hour delivery time agreed with the UKHSA.
Delivery of UKHSA into Alliance Healthcare is done throughout the day at the UK’s 11 service centres. More than 1 million were among the 2 million lateral flow testing we received in December. On December 24, we distributed over 2 million lateral flows tests.
Pablo Rivas (Chief Operating Officer, Alliance Healthcare UK), the only distributor of LFTs for pharmacies across the country, stated that he didn’t know anything about the crisis as he just returned from “somewhere nice”.
On 29 December, Alliance Healthcare resumed distribution. Community pharmacies were reopened, many of them closed for Christmas. A further 2 million flow tests and additional supplies have since been distributed.
Alliance Healthcare supports community pharmacy. Since the launch of Pharmacy Collect, Alliance Healthcare has distributed over 280,000,000 lateral flows kits. As part of our ongoing support for the NHS, including its efforts in fighting COVID-19, we distribute 10,000,000 lateral flow tests each week to meet the demand. That’s a million more than what was initially planned through the UKHSA.
This is because Britons are still having difficulty obtaining lateral flow testst today.
One user claimed she couldn’t access the test for two weeks. Lesley Tarling tweeted: “No lateral flows test available in our area.
“My local pharmacists haven’t had them since over two weeks. So people who mingled over Christmas won’t be able to test their samples before heading out.
A Twitter user shared the following: “So, you’re advised to lateralflow test periodically by Government and Boris Johnson. However I have tried almost eight pharmacies here in Telford but none of them stock it!
Elora Pharmacy (Benfleet), Essex also asked its customers to understand their staff by writing via Twitter: “There are still some supply problems regarding lateral flow testing, so we request your patience towards our staff.
“Many issues beyond our control, and we truly appreciate everyone’s cooperation. We are grateful.
It comes as it emerged yesterday that eBay profiteers are trying to cash in on the crisis by selling packs of seven NHS tests for £100 on the eve of the reopening of schools and the nation heading back to work.
Sajid Javid acknowledged that Covid testing supplies could be restricted in the near future as officials face a huge demand.
In a letter sent to MPs by the Health Secretary, she warned that it was important to prioritize testing for vulnerable groups such as residents in care homes and staff.
There are concerns that the economy could be hit by supply shortages if workers cannot get the necessary tests to allow them to escape quarantine in time.
According to medical unions, doctors and nurses were among the most difficult to obtain tests. They called for their inclusion in the first queue to prevent a crisis with the NHS.
In an effort to control the virus, Mr Javid will use over 900million lateralflow devices (LFDs), this winter to try to keep staff at work and businesses open.
In December, the UK Health Security Agency increased LFD deliveries by almost 300 million to 120million.
The government is also expected to triple supply for January and February, from the 100million-300million monthly estimate.
According to Mr Javid, MPs were told by him that the omicron version has generated record numbers of cases and an unprecedented demand for both PCR (Polymer Flow Device) and Lateral Flow Devices (LFD).
“This has invariably put strain on the testing systems, even with the remarkable scaling up of supply, logistics, and laboratory capacities. Others have also faced similar problems.
He stated, “We continually review system performance and find ways to increase its response time to customer requests for testing.”
“However we are aware of the high demand for LFDs in recent weeks and expect to have to limit the system at specific points during the next 2 weeks. We will manage the supply of LFDs throughout the day with new supply tranches being released every day.
“We will keep making these tests accessible to all who need them, especially vulnerable groups like care home residents or those working in crucial sectors like the care workforce.”
The UK Health Security Agency had previously said there wasn’t a problem with supply. It instead blamed logistical difficulties, including the difficulty shipping many of its tests out of its warehouses.
Javid, however, spoke out about his future plans. He said that he was buying additional LFD testing units in order to meet anticipated demand.
“We also double our delivery capacity with Royal Mail, to 900,000.00 test packs and PCR testing per day.
“We have tripled the amount of LFDs available in January and February, compared to our 100 million monthly pre-omicron plan. We now supply 300 million LFDs per month.
Javid stated that Government’s daily capacity for PCR had increased from 530,000 per hour in November to 700,000. Per day now. This does not include the daily PCR capacity of NHS staff and patients.
He stressed that the UK provides free tests for all people, regardless of their symptoms. This is unlike other countries.