Respiratory Care Initiative of the Year

Covid-19 Point of Care testing hub (CoV-19 POC) : University Hospital Southampton FT

We created a rapid, point-of-care testing service for SARS-CoV-2 (the virus causing COVID-19) in the Emergency Department (ED) and Acute Medical Unit (AMU) of Southampton General Hospital for the first peak of epidemic in March 2020.

Patients typically wait at least 24 hours for the results of their laboratory COVID tests, during which time they are often in cohort bays together, increasing the risk of transmission to other patients and staff. We created the service in order to dramatically reduce this risk. Our team included respiratory research nurses, doctors, clinical trials assistants, trial managers and research laboratory staff.