It has been hailed as a cutting-edge laboratory that will play a key role in responding to Covid-19 and future epidemics, performing 300,000 tests a day.
Announcing the project in November 2020, then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the project “confirms the UK as a world leader in diagnostics”.
But less than 18 months later, Rosalind Franklin’s laboratory – named after a famous British scientist – was tormented by failure, costing almost twice its original budget of 588 million pounds, according to The Independent.
Instead of being at the forefront of the fight against Covid, the project opened a six-month delay, facing a number of problems with equipment, staff and construction, with only 20% of its advertised capacity reached.
Now that the government is shutting down its lighthouse testing labs as part of a plan to “live with Covid”, leaving Leamington Spa as the last lab, there are questions about the site’s future – and whether it will be able to handle the needs on its own. of the nation from tests if a new deadly wave of Covid emerges.
“Huge repulsions”
The project has been announced as the leader of the new UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), which has succeeded Public Health in England as the body responsible for protecting society from infectious diseases and oversees Covid testing in the UK.
The 220,000-square-foot site, hailed as the largest testing facility of its kind in Europe, was due to open the first of its production lines in January 2021, the peak of the second wave of Covid-19. By June of that year, nine of the 12 lines were due to operate.
However, it was not until July 13 that the laboratory was officially opened, with only one line operating. It has been acknowledged that four of the lines will never be built, even though employees are placing and receiving orders for test equipment worth millions, sources involved in setting up the lab told The Independent.
“The health ministry said it was the plan all along. That was absolutely not the plan, “said a former senior scientist.
The site of Rosalind Franklin’s laboratory at Leamington Spa
(Department of Health and Welfare)
Insiders say construction delays also played a role, while attempts to avoid certification of process acceleration equipment were halted at 11 a.m., which contributed to “mass repulsions”. UKHSA said these allegations were untrue.
Insiders believe that these delays could have been avoided if RFL had hired scientists and clinicians with relevant experience from the start of the project, instead of relying on private consultants whose knowledge of working for the NHS was “almost non-existent”.
According to emails seen by The Independent, 31 lab technicians were informed last summer – days before they started work – that they would be paid to stay home indefinitely due to delays, costing tens of thousands of pounds to the taxpayer. An additional 700 employees were in office last summer, but have not yet started work.
Employees “are all on short-term contracts,” said a senior scientist observing the Lighthouse laboratory network in the United Kingdom. “This creates problems in conducting laboratories, because if you have a short-term contract and long-term work occurs, you will naturally move forward.”
Spiral costs
Its total budget is set at £ 588 million, according to internal data from June 2021. But by May of that year, £ 500 million had already been spent, with spending “spiraling”, the former senior scientist said.
By November, the site was hundreds of millions of pounds above budget, according to another person familiar with the project’s finances. By February, estimates set the project at £ 1.1 billion, according to a Finance Ministry source, who said costs were out of control. UKHSA said it did not recognize the numbers.
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In fact, civil servants have no clear idea of how much was spent on the project, according to an interior ministry finance official and consultant involved in reviewing the laboratory’s future.
Prior to the site’s opening, when it became clear that RFL would not be built to its original size, procurement teams were pressured to cancel contracts with suppliers and “write off orders” for equipment worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, insiders said.
“Under no precarious conditions have we been told never to provide things like long-term equipment delivery schedules, as this could be considered a promise to the supplier to abide by the original agreement in court,” said the former senior scientist who helped oversee the contract. the laboratory.
The Independent was told that the Ministry of Finance had tried to “unplug” the project due to rising costs, but was persuaded not to. The site is now “under review” by HMT employees. The Ministry of Finance declined to comment.
Professor Colin Fink, medical director at the private diagnostic firm Microbiology, said: “It was really too late. We could have done it for one tenth of the price… They didn’t want to participate at all. ”
“Constant breaking”
By October last year, the lab had processed its millionth Covid test. According to the government’s plans, it was hoped that RFL would work with 100,000 samples a day – a revision of 300,000. Instead, the lab typically processed only 11,500, the analysis said.
Although this has increased in the months since, scientists estimate an average of 25,000 to 30,000 per day. The laboratory has never processed more than 65,000 tests in 24 hours, 22% of the original estimated capacity.
Sources say testing has been hampered by recurring mechanical failures. A former laboratory assistant questioned whether the machines, which are “very complex and expensive”, were designed to work 24 hours a day.
“Some were out of action at least once a week,” they said. Another source said “machines [were] breaking constantly, at a speed that should not happen ”. A third said that mechanical problems arise on a daily basis.
UKHSA said the equipment had been routinely inspected and that a number of machines had allowed testing to continue if one failed.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid during a visit to Rosalind Franklin’s lab last year
(Tim Hammond / Downing Street 10)
If the machines are damaged during the night shift, staff are expected to call US maintenance teams to try to repair the equipment. “This is done via WhatsApp Video and can take two to three hours, during which time everything is delayed,” which risks failing tests, said a former senior staff member at the lab.
Concerns were also expressed that the elements used for the equipment, such as pipetting tips, were not compatible with the machines. This “means that they work outside the specifications, so the manufacturers do not guarantee the validity of the results,” said a senior administrative source with oversight of the entire laboratory.
The former senior official said “tens of thousands” of tests had been diverted elsewhere to the government’s “far” network of private laboratories, including the Milton Keynes facility, as a result of repeated mechanical damage and lack of capacity.
About 217,000 samples were diverted from the laboratory between September last year and mid-March due to planned and unplanned circumstances, UKHSA reported. This is a “safe and routine part of the operation,” a spokesman added.
But despite awareness among staff that equipment is regularly damaged, which results in invalid test results, such failures are not always reported to the UKHSA, laboratory officials said.
“There is a suspicion among some laboratory staff that this type of event … is somewhat routine,” said a senior administrative source, citing incidents of contamination of samples that were “cleaned under the carpet.” UKHSA said it did not recognize the allegations.
In most cases, erroneous results are identified by the quality control and evaluation teams of the laboratory, at which point the original sample is retested.
However, some false negatives and positives crept under the radar and were identified only retrospectively after the results were returned to the public, according to three separate sources, including one familiar with the lab test verification system. UKHSA said it did not recognize the allegations.
Last June, after updating the software of the laboratory’s testing systems, about 1,900 samples were contaminated during processing and were considered invalid. Once the problem was resolved, the members of the public concerned were informed of the error and told to retake their tests.
‘sitting around’
Newcomers to the lab, many of whom have graduated from school or university, have little experience in managing the types of machines used in RFL, and need to be trained in how to use them. However, the laboratory “lacks trainers” to do so, according to a former laboratory assistant.
A senior administrative source said junior staff were being treated “pretty badly”, which “drastically affects morale”, while a former official said cleaning staff regularly slept through the night in the RFL social care area.
The workers say their time in the lab was characterized by strong pressure, followed by shifts with very little work. There are examples of some employees working consecutive 11-hour shifts; in other cases, the teams were left to “sit for 10 hours at a time” due to a lack of samples. Employees have spent much of that time watching YouTube, playing video games and even drinking on the site, according to numerous sources.
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