The Scottish government says it is examining whether testing of care home residents and staff can be done in local NHS labs rather than the UK wide network.

The issue is being highlighted as an increase in demand for testing in England has hit the whole of the UK, meaning that fewer tests of people in Scotland are being turned around in 24 or 48 hours.

For the second day running, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish government’s daily covid-19 briefing that she was concerned at the impact this was having on how quickly contact tracing can begin.

She said she was working with the UK government to see if there was anything that Scotland could do to ensure a backlog of tests does not build up.

“Right now, our regular care home testing goes through the UK lighthouse lab part of the system.

“We are looking, and some health boards are starting to do this, to take that into NHS labs to try to free up some capacity in the lighthouse.”

Ms Sturgeon said she has been seeking reassurances that Scotland is being allocated a fair share of the UK testing resources. At the same time, she said she was keen that overall capacity within Scotland increases.

“We want to be a constructive part of finding a solution one of things that we are looking at is taking our care home testing into the NHS lab strand to free up capacity and make sure we don’t have these delays in the care homes.”

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