A lateral flow testing pilot has been rolled out at leading food company Moy Park sites across Northern Ireland and England as part of the Government’s UK-wide continuing drive to increase the availability of testing.
The pilot is part of a partnership between Moy Park and the Department of Health and Social Care to trial new tests.
Tests provide results within 30 minutes and feed directly into the national testing database.
Information from the trial will be fed back to help inform the rollout rapid testing technology across the rest of the UK.
All staff and visitors to Moy Park sites who are asymptomatic are now able to be tested. With around one in three people with Covid-19 not displaying symptoms, it’s hoped testing can help protect staff and visitors by quickly identifying those that need to isolate.
Minister of Innovation at the at Department of Health and Social Care, Lord Bethell, said: “We’ve already come so far since first setting up a national testing programme at an unprecedented pace to help counter Covid-19, but we continue to strive to go further, faster.
“Innovations such as lateral flow testing hold the key to the next phase of our ambition to see mass, rapid testing available to people across the country.
I’m delighted that Moy Park is working with us to pilot the latest technology and I look forward to seeing the fruits of their labour, both in helping target the virus locally, and helping find ways to roll this technology out further soon.”
Kirsty Wilkins, HR and performance director at Moy Park, said: “We are proud to be playing our part to help tackle the spread of coronavirus by participating in the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) rapid testing pilot Programme.
Rapid asymptomatic testing is considered an important element of the national strategy to tackle the pandemic and this pilot will allow DHSC to gather more data to help define the best strategy moving forward, protecting those most vulnerable in our society.
“Safety is a condition at Moy Park and we continue to maintain the highest level of vigilance to stop the virus coming into our facilities and help prevent its transmission.
“Participation in the pilot scheme runs in tandem with the rigorous safety protocols we have in place such as thermal temperature scanning, enhanced cleaning and hygiene regimes, Perspex screens, additional PPE and social distancing measures.”
