Legal proceedings against Health Secretary after 43,000 false negative Covid tests

Legal proceedings have been launched against the Health Secretary after a coronavirus testing laboratory gave 43,000 people incorrect results.

The Good Law Project began legal action against the Secretary of State, Sajid Javid on Monday 1 November, after a privately-run Immensa lab in Wolverhampton wrongly told thousands of people they did not have the virus.

The incorrect Covid-19 PCR test results mainly affected people living in the West Country, which subsequently became the region with the highest rate of covid cases in October.

Campaigners have now demanded the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) terminate all contracts with Immensa, compensate those impacted and take action to regulate testing firms.

The Good Law Project says if its demands are not met, it will sue.

The false test results are believed to have occurred between 8 September and 12 October. The Department of Health and Social Care subsequently announced it had suspended testing at the Wolverhampton lab on 15 October.

But the Project says the same private company, Immensa, is still be allowed to process PCR tests at its lab in Loughborough.

Wiltshire's Director of Public Health, Kate Blackburn, believes the rise in new cases seen over the past two weeks in the West Country has been due to these false-negative tests.

She said: "Undoubtedly the issue with the laboratory with false PCR negative tests - predominantly affecting the south west - meant that people who were potentially infectious went back into the community and seeded the infection.

"I think that's why we've seen such a big jump in the south west," she added.

'The consequences have been catastrophic'

Jo Maugham, Director of the Good Law Project said: "We don't know why the government chose to sidestep established testing facilities in universities and hospitals to spend £119m to a newly formed private company. But the consequences have been catastrophic.

"Many people are likely to have lost their lives. We want answers for their families and the tens of thousands of others whose lives have been blighted by the Government's inexplicable disregard for public health."

The Project also alleges the laboratory in Wolverhampton was never accredited to carry out tests, despite the government insisting that it was.

In response, a DHSC spokesperson said: "The Immensa laboratory in Wolverhampton passed an independent quality audit overseen by NHS Test and Trace and is in the process of UKAS accreditation."

The department advised that it had advised the lab to stop private travel testing at the start of its investigation and has been assured that Immensa is not carrying out any private or international testing at the Wolverhampton lab.

Credit: Matthew McLaughlin, Local Democracy Reporting Service