Stone welcomes move on mobile Covid-19 testing in Highlands
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North MP Jamie Stone has welcomed the news that the Highlands will be one of the first areas to see the roll-out of mobile coronavirus testing facilities.
He was speaking after health secretary Jeane Freeman confirmed that the Highlands and the south of Scotland will be given mobile testing capacity supported by the army.
Mr Stone, the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, said: "I am absolutely delighted that testing will be available to key workers across the north. Without wanting to put a dampener on the announcement, it is not often that I see Highland healthcare being made a priority.
"We often talk about how grateful we are to those brave military men and women who risk their lives for us, but to see them fight the virus through a testing operation right on our doorstep – well, the only words I have are: thank you."
The announcement came over the weekend, with further confirmation from Ms Freeman on Monday.
The mobile testing units will deploy to the most accessible areas and will concentrate on key workers to ensure continuity of services for the public.
Though the exact locations of the first deployments have yet to be revealed, they will be used to serve the NHS Highland area which is by far the largest health board in Scotland geographically.
This comes after a new key worker-only testing centre was established at the Inverness Campus that went into the pilot phase on Sunday, supplementing the two testing centres already in place in and around Raigmore Hospital.
Mobile facilities can be set up in under 20 minutes and can test hundreds of people each day, and will travel to those most in need and hard to reach.
Specially trained armed forces personnel will collect swabs at the mobile sites before they are sent to labs for processing, with the results coming back within 48 hours.
The rapid expansion of a network of mobile test units is now under way, with new units being fielded in the coming weeks and at least 96 ready to be deployed by the start of May UK-wide.
New mobile sites will travel to frontline workers in places including:
- Care homes
- Police stations
- Prisons
- Benefits centres
- Fire and rescue services
Ms Freeman said: “They are mobile so they will go to wherever, initially in the south of the country and in the Highlands, but we need more than that of course.
“This is the beginning of that mobilisation, and they will be there to allow key worker testing in particular but to supplement any other test that is needed to feed into NHS labs.
“The logistics of it are being worked through very carefully.”
