More than £5 million pounds to be spent on increasing coronavirus testing at Ipswich Hospital

More than £5 million pounds will be spent to increase coronavirus testing at Ipswich Hospital.

The money will be used on a new Molecular laboratory, to allow a maximum of 3,000 people to be tested everyday by the end of March.

The hospital is currently able to test 1,200 people a day, with results returned within hours.

At the start of the outbreak, the hospital had no capacity to analyse Covid-19 tests on site.

Tests were instead being sent to Cambridge, which meant results took five to seven days to be returned.

Tom Hunt, MP for Ipswich, wrote to the Health Secretary in October, calling for a new laboratory to be given “ministerial approval at the earliest opportunity”.“More testing with quick turnaround times is vital to beating Covid-19 and I made the point in the Chamber today that it’s incredibly important that Ipswich Hospital is where it needs to be on this issue", Hunt said.

"That wasn’t the case while the Hospital had reached its testing capacity and was processing the tests in a less than ideal lab space. That’s why I wrote to Health Secretary about Ipswich Hospital’s plans for a new Molecular lab last month. And it was good we got this £5.2 million investment off Ministers’ desks and into our local Hospital where it’s needed.

“This new lab will allow the Hospital to ramp up testing to 3,000 tests a day by the end of March and provide long-term benefits for Ipswich residents like improved cancer diagnosis.

With the news that the first coronavirus vaccinations could take place before the end of 2020, the NHS are looking to use the Gainsborough Sports Centre in Ipswich as Suffolk’s first site for delivering vaccinations.

It's been reported that the site will be set up in two weeks time.