COVID testing in the Western Isles

As a result of a current technical issue with the Laboratory (PCR) COVID testing system in the Western Isles Hospital Laboratory in Stornoway, all COVID tests will now unfortunately have to be sent off-island for a period. Arrangements are now in place for this to happen. Samples will go to Edinburgh in the meantime.  

Whilst this was unavoidable, NHS Western Isles would like to apologise sincerely for the implications of this issue. In particular, it is likely and we anticipate that the timescale for all tests results to be returned will increase for a period to around 72 hours.   

NHS Western Isles is taking every possible action to resolve the issue with replacement equipment as quickly as possible. Unfortunately we are currently unable to confirm the length of time that the issue will take to resolve.  

We would like to reassure that for urgent hospital admissions/presentations a separate system called Point of Care testing is in place. This breakdown affects the wider PCR community testing.   

Regular updates will be provided, and we would like to thank our local community for their understanding.