Three in ten NHS staff could be getting ‘false negative’ Covid-19 tests, union warns

Three in ten NHS staff with Covid-19 could be getting false negative test results fueling the spread of the disease in hospitals, a doctor’s union has warned.

The Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association (HCSA) said it fears incorrect test results are sending doctors and nurses back to treat vulnerable patients while unwittingly still infectious.

The union called on the Government to publish the false negative rates for all its antigen tests, which detect whether the disease is present rather than if a subject has previously had it, and criticised ministers’ for their ‘wall of silence’ over the issue.

The HCSA also said that rules should be changed so that doctors and nurses needed two negative tests to return and to prevent hospitals becoming ‘hotspots’ of infection that could fuel a ‘second wave’ of infections in the country.

In a letter to Duncan Selbie Chief Executive Public Health England (PHE), seen by The Telegraph, Dr Paul Donaldson, General Secretary of the HCSA expressed his “deep concern and frustration” at the body’s “systematic lack of information” over the reliability of its polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests.

He said: “A wall of silence seems to have been erected around the issue, with only the occasional claim or hint emerging regarding the current testing regime.

“Separately, statements by PHE officials and others place the incidence of false negatives somewhere between 20 and 30 percent. If confirmed, this is a worryingly high rate which raises the prospect of many infected individuals, possibly without symptoms, being passed fit to return to healthcare settings where they will transmit SARS-CoV-2 to colleagues and patients.”

The union said it has made a number of attempts witrh PHE, including writing to Mr Selbie directly in April, to clarify the false positive rates of all tests.

When pressed on the false negative rates in Parliament earlier this month, Nadine Dorries, the health minister for patient safety, said the Government was currently using eight different tests that are “clinically validated and have high levels of performance”.

Following the HCSA’s letter, Dr Nick Phin, Public Health England Incident Director said: “The UK’s national testing system is built on strong foundations using the latest scientific evidence and expert advice.

“The different tests in use have been assessed as performing to manufacturers' specifications.”

However, HCSA’s president, Dr Claudia Paoloni, said NHS staff had experienced problems with antigen tests, such as swabs being too long to fit into the containers they are sent to the laboratory in.

This meant people had to snap them to fit them into the cases, which could void the test.

Dr Paoloni, a Consultant Anaesthetist at University Hospital Bristol, said the union was concerned about the spectre of doctors and nurses being sent back to work while unknowingly infectious at a time when the Government is encouraging vulnerable non-coronavirus patients to return to hospitals for their treatments.

“It could create a hotspot area within the hospitals where we are causing a spread of the infection,” she said.

“Therefore this is a higher risk, if we don’t get this right, that a second wave could occur and with higher numbers and be more significant.

“Also, people will retract again as they will be too fearful to come in if they see that infections are going up because of what is happening in hospitals. If people can’t get their treatments, like cancer patients not getting treated or diagnosed, that can all have a impact on the death numbers in the longer term.”