The first, newly-opened mass testing site for people who are not showing signs of having covid in Nottingham has got off to a slow start, health bosses have said.
The site at Djanogly Leisure Centre, in Forest Fields, is now fully open and people don’t need to book – they can just turn up and get a test, but only a trickle of people have taken up the offer.
Because around one in three people who get covid do not show any symptoms, it is hoped mass testing can help identify them and get them to isolate.
But there has been considerable confusion – and scepticism – about the roll-out of mass testing in the city and county.
After what the Government described as a successful pilot in Liverpool, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire were each given 10,000 rapid testing kits at the start of November, and told to expect more imminently.
But the director of public health for Nottinghamshire county had previously expressed concerns about the widespread use of the kits, and for weeks public health bosses were unable to say how the kits would be used.
The Government gave limited information about how the 10,000 tests should be used, who should administer them, or what results they hoped to see.
It was more than two months before the first centre opened to the public, and now health bosses have said just 284 people came for a test in the first four days since it opened on Wednesday – about a quarter of what is needed to make the site financially viable.
But more sites are opening elsewhere in the county, and health experts say they are confident the numbers will start to pick up.
Sites at Oak Tree Leisure Centre, in Mansfield, and at Framework, in London Road, Nottingham have opened today (Tuesday, January 26) and another testing centre at Mansfield Football Club is due to open on Thursday, January 28.
Other sites in Worksop are due to open next week and the week after.
The sites are strategically located, in areas where it is believed there is a relatively high prevalence of covid and relatively low take-up of testing.
Roz Howie, one of the health bosses behind the mass testing rollout, spoke about the take-up levels during a Covid meeting at Nottinghamshire County Council yesterday (Monday, January 25).
She said: “At the moment, we know that to financially get a balance we have to do 240 tests a day at the Oak Tree Leisure Centre (in Mansfield).
“Early days at Djanogly show that we are way short of that.
“On Wednesday (January 20), we had 86 tests (at Djanogly Leisure Centre), we need 275 to break even.
“On Thursday we had 83, Friday we had 86 and Saturday 29, but we did do a shorter day.
