#Quick test lab diagnostics full

Our aim is for the UK to maintain a resilient, long-term, PCR testing capacity that serves the whole nation.

#Quick test lab diagnostics full

Instrumental to this is the UK’s first testing megalab – the Rosalind Franklin laboratory in Royal Leamington Spa – which has opened and will scale up over the coming months to be able to process hundreds of thousands of tests a day when operating at full capacity. To support the current increase in demand for testing, NHS Test and Trace is ramping up laboratory operations across the network. Over the course of the past year this network has adapted to face changes in demand and the arrival of new variants within the country. Testing remains a vital part of our response to COVID-19 as restrictions are lifted and as the nature of the pandemic continues to evolve. We have built a vast national laboratory system at incredible speed over the past year and have set up an entirely new nationwide network of testing sites to enable widespread access to COVID-19 testing. The importance of the national laboratory network The government continuously reviews laboratory requirements as the pandemic progresses, ensuring we have capacity to respond to surges in demand. We receive samples from testing sites, such as COVID-19 drive-through and walk-through testing centres, and the NHS on the front line. COVID-19 swab samples are sent to our laboratories from across the country for analysis. This is for a range of uses including to diagnose people with symptoms, test close contacts of those who have tested positive, help detect variants of concern, understand how the virus is spreading and confirm rapid test results. We have scaled up the use of rapid, asymptomatic testing across the country, but we continue to test individuals using laboratory-based methods. Since the start of this global pandemic, we have vastly expanded the nation’s coronavirus (COVID-19) testing capacity by establishing the largest network of diagnostic testing facilities in British history. An overview of the largest diagnostic network in British history, including what happens after you have submitted your sample and how the laboratories process your test.