Coronavirus tests given to NHS staff to let them return to work are FLAWED and gave false all-clear readings, leaked Public Health England memo reveals
Thousands of doctors and nurses may have been given inaccurate coronavirus tests.
A leaked Public Health England document revealed testing centres had been told to stop using the kits because of ‘quality assurance difficulties’.
The memo warned the results were less reliable than initially thought. It means many NHS staff could have returned to work while still contagious.
The document from April 11, seen by The Daily Telegraph, said the tests run by PHE and NHS laboratories had produced a few ‘discordant results’.
Scientists have been told to stop using them by tomorrow and switch to commercial kits. They must double-check all ambiguous results.
A Government official told the Telegraph the PHE test was a ‘home brew’ and had been relied on ‘for too long’.
But health officials said it found the test produced different results to alternative commercial tests in only 2 per cent of samples from one of the labs.
Professor Sharon Peacock, of PHE’s national infection service, said: ‘No diagnostic test is 100 per cent sensitive. It is standard practice to move to commercial test kits once available.’
Coronavirus testing was taking place today in the car park of Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey, pictured