Today (27th April) I had a conference call with Seb James, Chief Executive of Boots UK and Republic of Ireland and Tricia Kennerley, Director International Public Affairs, who are based at Boots in Beeston. Boots in Broxtowe was the first non-hospital COVID-19 testing facility in the UK. Antigen testing is most useful for key workers, for example the NHS, Police, Fire Service etc. It allows for people to establish rapidly whether someone who needs to be at work can or whether they must stay at home. It means people do not need to wait for symptoms to develop as an indicator of whether they must stay at home. A swab is taken deep inside the mouth by a medically competent individual. The swabs are then sent for testing overnight, a machine can typically test 90 samples in 40 minutes. Once a positive or negative result has come back, the information must then be processed and logged. Doing this allows for the disease to be tracked. Testing takes place in car parks with the following procedure:
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Step 1. People invited for testing drive into the car park and roll down their windows when they reach a testing booth.
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Step 2. Medically trained individuals dressed in full protective clothing take a swab of the mouth and take the sample away for testing.
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Step 3. The swab is tested and results are typically returned the next day.
Boots has increased capacity and now has 24 testing sites which is referenced by Seb in the video here. Military personnel are now being drafted in and trained to increase testing capacity further. The military is carrying out mobile testing which allows them to test more remote facilities like care homes located away from fixed location testing facilities.
I had a virtual meeting, along with other MPs, on Thursday (23rd April) of last week with the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group. Over the last 2 weeks a testing cell, with a central call centre, to support the coordination of testing of health and care workers has been established. The May bank holidays have been designated by NHS England as normal working days for GP practices, in line with the approach at Easter. However, they are seeing a trend of people not presenting at their GP or hospital and an increase in 111 and pharmacy access. People should still come forward with health concerns if they are ill or injured. They have established a care homes cell as part of the incident response structure. System-wide plans for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) distribution to care homes have been developed and they are working to ensure staff have access to PPE. The best place to look up guidance on PPE is here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wuhan-novel-coronavirus-infection-prevention-and-control/covid-19-personal-protective-equipment-ppe which has all the latest information and is continuously updated.
On Friday (24th April) I had a conference call with Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust as part of our quarterly cross-party MP meetings. Nottingham University Hospitals have been selected to be part of the second stage of the Health Infrastructure Programme referred to in the jargon as HIP2. I am pleased that the £5m seed money has been allocated to them and they have been informed there will be the potential to draw down more as their scheme progresses. This is part of the Government’s new hospital building programme, which is, to use the Prime Minister’s words, the “biggest hospital building programme in a generation”. The Trust is currently exploring options, including developments at Queens Medical Centre campus.
Today (27th April) the Finance Bill will receive its Second Reading in Parliament. Many people are worried about the impact of coronavirus on their lives, and this Finance Bill will have measures to address the ‘taper problem’ in doctors’ pensions, reform Entrepreneurs’ Relief so that it genuinely works in the interests of small business owners, and increase R&D tax credits to significantly increase private R&D investment. These measures are in addition to the Coronavirus Act, helping to protect life and the nation’s public health. This month, the National Living Wage also received its largest cash boost to £8.72, and the Government has delivered a £100 tax cut for a typical employee by increasing the National Insurance threshold to £9,500 - putting more money in people’s pockets.
I held my first virtual surgery on Wednesday 22nd April and second on Friday 24thApril; if you would like book your place on my online surgeries please contact me via my email address: darren.henry.mp@parliament.uk. I look forward to hearing from you as I am here to serve you.
Darren