Care home staff re-tested for Covid-19 due to risk of false positive results
Care home staff in Powys are being tested for Covid-19 several times in case their results throw up false positives.
At Powys County Counci's economy, residents, communities and governance scrutiny committee, fears that people might lose faith in the testing regime because of false positive results, were discussed.
The draft report for the council’s quarter two performance, from July to the end of September, shows that the Test Trace and Protect system being jointly run with Powys Teaching Health Board is the best performing in Wales, with a 99 per-cent success rate.
Councillor Jeremy Pugh said experts in the health industry had said that roughly eight per-cent of the test results are wrong and that accuracy is roughly 92 per cent.
This followed a discussion with a resident whose son had tested positive, but had no symptoms.
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Councillor Pugh said: “It would be wise to look into this, I’m concerned the public’s belief in the system is being lost.
“If things get worse it will be more difficult than ever to get them to adhere to the rules to prevent the spread.”
Director of Environment and Economy Nigel Brinn, said he had taken advice from the health board.
Mr Brinn said: “When there is mass testing such as at a workplace, there are false positives, there’s no question about that.
Conscious
“There is routine testing in care homes and we are very conscious of false positive tests there.
“The advice I have been given is if you have symptoms, there’s a very low chance of a false positive result.”
Mr Brinn added: “It is an area which is being scrutinised and better understood as we progress through the pandemic.”
He added that it would be “nice” to have a simple test that worked perfectly but 'the science isn't there'.
He added that it was testing people without symptoms which caused concern, and this is why care home staff are tested are now tested more than once.
The report, states that from July to the end of September, 198 cases were investigated and 870 contacts were tracked down.
This is a 99 per-cent success rate making Powys the highest performing Contact Tracing Team in Wales.
During this time they have also helped tracing teams, in other Welsh local authorities which have had significant Covid-19 outbreaks.
The report adds that as of Monday, October 12, the TTP team has now extended its hours to work 12 hours a day from 8am to 8pm.
This allows them to react to cases that come onto the system later in the day.
