The NHS’s vaccination drive has now been expanded with the opening of 33 new vaccination centres across the UK. These sites will ensure that vaccines are accessible to the vulnerable groups who are currently receiving doses, including the over-80s and health and care workers. London, Blackpool and Sunderland are among the locations that will see newly opened vaccine sites. The 33 new facilities will take the total number of vaccination centres in the UK to fifty. These sites are able to ad...

BIVDA Welcomes Publication of Medtech Funding Mandate  BIVDA, the UK trade association for in vitro diagnostics companies, has welcomed the publication of the Medtech Funding Mandate. In the NHS Long Term Plan, NHS England and NHS Improvement outlined how research and innovation would drive better outcomes and experience for patients. An important element of this was the commitment to introduce a MedTech Funding Mandate to accelerate the uptake of selected National Institute for Health and ...

Newly inaugurated US President Joe Biden is pushing forward with a revitalised and stronger coronavirus testing strategy for the United States as he begins his presidential programme plans. The major cornerstones of his diagnostic approach are a $50 billion plan in investment and more federal oversight of testing activities. A newly created Pandemic Testing Board will channel its efforts through a ‘’clear, unified testing approach”. Laboratories have ramped up production to mor...

Further public and private sector organisations have signed up for rapid coronavirus testing of employees in their workplaces as Government seeks to expand the availability of lateral flow devices in picking up asymptomatic cases of the virus. Companies and organisations which are already involved in rapid testing include Royal Mail, Tate & Lyle Sugars, Primula, Moy Park, Octopus Energy, Apetito, and DVLA. This uptake is due to the fact that around one in three people can carry the virus wit...

25/01/2021   Simple Imaging With Results You Can Trust Now available from Alpha Laboratories, the new gelLITE gel documentation system is a compact and convenient system for documentation of agarose gels and stained protein gels.   A 302nm UV transilluminator enables imaging of large format agarose gels or stained protein gels up to 20 x 20 cm, and can slide out from the main body of the system allowing gel extraction of DNA ...

Cardiff, UK – 21st January 2021 – EKF Diagnostics, the global in vitro diagnostics company, announces that it has expanded into new larger manufacturing facilities at Llandough Trading Estate, Cardiff, to increase production of PrimeStore® MTM viral transport media, a key component for the COVID-19 testing regime. The new facility is over 600 sq. metres, representing a 100% increase in manufacturing area. This enables EKF to fill 36,000 PrimeStore MTM tubes daily and meet gr...

The Government has reminded the general public and businesses that the deadline for the EU Settlement Status scheme applications is on the horizon and that applicants should ensure they have correctly provided their details. 30th June 2021 is the application deadline and there are more than 1,500 people employed in the Home Office team working on the scheme’s operations.  European citizens in the UK are encouraged to apply so that their rights can be secured in UK law. Data published ...

NHSX, in collaboration with the AHSN Network, is inviting contributions to a survey which aims to provide a snapshot of AI development and implementation in health and care, including the impact of the NHS AI Lab. NHSX have produced the attached comms pack to support the release of the 2021 survey, expected to run for five weeks. The survey went live on 13 January. Your support with dissemination through your own channels would be much appreciated.

Daily COVID-19 testing of school students and teachers has been paused by Government after Public Health England recommended the suspension of lateral flow tests in these settings due to questions over their widespread use in rapid testing programmes. Gavin Williamson, the Education Minister, had hailed the daily school testing as a “milestone moment” five weeks ago upon the scheme’s launch. PHE stated its uncertainty over the initiative as it balanced the risks and potential o...

NHS Test and Trace reached more than one million people over the New Year week, advising them to self-isolate due to either a positive test result or close contact with an infected person. These are record levels for the service as they endeavour to get in contact with positive cases and trace those who were in recent close contact with them to isolate the virus and prevent further transmission within the community. During the first week of 2021, NHS Test and Trace reaching 92.7% of contacts, an...