[ad_1]
Health Service Executive (HSE) chief executive Paul Reid said a target will be introduced next week to avoid testing and tracing in 90 percent of cases within three days.
Reid acknowledged that the service “needs to improve” its ability to trace and test contacts and response times.
Speaking today at a HSE briefing at University College Dublin, Mr. Reid described a new roadmap for testing and tracing that has been agreed to by the health service, the Government, the Department of Health and the Team. National Public Health Emergency (NPHET).
“We need to improve where we have been,” he said, defending the progress made to date. “We have faced very serious delays that resulted in a very poor experience for many people,” he said, adding that the HSE had been “tried and held to account.”
However, Mr. Reid said that the health service had met or exceeded all of its goals in sampling and testing capacity, as well as the response time for tests to be completed and contact tracing completed. .
His comments come amid scrutiny of the state’s contact tracking and testing process, seen as a key element in easing movement restrictions and other measures over the summer.
Experts have said the current timelines are too slow relative to where they should be to help ensure the disease is kept under control as closure measures are relaxed.
According to documents submitted by Mr. Reid, by Monday, the testing capacity will be 15,000 tests per day. The swab-to-result time will be between one and two days, and end-to-end response times will be three days or less, according to the documents.
On May 5, the swab-to-result time was two to three days, and the end-to-end response time was around five days.
Mr. Reid said that HSE is now using a variety of different systems for testing and tracking, which can cause difficulties.
“What we are dealing with. . . it’s a whole history of legacy systems across the country, adding that there is a “range of separate systems” that often don’t communicate with each other. Reid said that more automation will help response times.
[ad_2]