Development of a Hampshire & Isle of Wight COVID-19 Testing Hub

Through joint working between University Hospital Southampton NHS FT (UHS FT), the University of Southampton (UoS), local government and the wider NHS and social care, the aim of this proposal is to establish a sub-regional Hampshire & Isle of Wight (HIOW) COVID-19 testing and training hub as a pathfinder for a national program. The objective is to demonstrate how mass scale Direct RT-LAMP saliva testing can be operationalised in a sub-regional testing hub driven by the NHS in service delivery. Developing a model through collaborative partnership with both commercial and academic partners, the constant focus will be on the need to create an infrastructure that delivers to the sub-regional population, while being easily and rapidly scaled up across the country. As a demonstration site, the aim is to immediately commence testing 2,000 samples per day from the outset, ramping up to 100,000 samples per day over 2-3 months.