Hospital confirm national test supply shortage won’t affect patients

8th October 2020

Southport Hospital has confirmed to OTS News they are unaffected by a major national logistical failure which has seen thousands of hospitals and GP surgeries left without coronavirus and cancer test kits.

Roche Diagnostics, one of the Trust’s suppliers, supply tens of thousands of life saving test kits to hospitals and doctors around the country but were struck by a crippling ‘logistical failure’ earlier this week meaning those kits were never issued.

Roche Diagnostics confirmed to Sky News that problems at its distribution warehouse in Newhaven in East Sussex means GPs and hospitals will have to ration blood tests and screening for diseases including cancer and diabetes.

However bosses at both Southport and Ormskirk hospitals say that despite the national shortage, there’s no need for patients at their sites to worry.

A spokesperson for the Trust told OTS News that Roche is one of the suppliers that the Trust uses but due to forward thinking operational processes at the Trust, they do have access to alternative Covid-19 diagnostic tests.

The news will come as a relief to those who were concerned over any potential shortage which could have seen hospital patients in Southport and West Lancashire go without a covid test.