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Increased coronavirus testing needed in Northern Ireland, says coroner

Coroner Joe McCrisken. Picture by Mark Marlow
Coroner Joe McCrisken. Picture by Mark Marlow Coroner Joe McCrisken. Picture by Mark Marlow

INCREASED testing is needed in Northern Ireland to provide better understanding of the coronavirus pandemic, a coroner has said.

Joe McCrisken said testing will be crucial in identifying the virus before moving towards reducing lockdown restrictions.

Fifteen coronavirus-related deaths have so far been reported to the coroner's office, Mr McCrisken said.

Eight were hospital admissions and seven were in the community, with one of those seven deaths occurring in a care home.

Mr McCrisken told the BBC that considering the scale of the pandemic, Northern Ireland is coping well in difficult circumstances.

He added: "Good accurate testing is going to be crucial to treating, identifying this virus and then moving forward in terms of coming out of lockdown.

"But it's important from a coroner's point of view, probably from a medic's point of view – increased accurate testing would give us a better picture of the particular circumstances of a person's death.

"So I'd rather have more information than less."

Concerns have been raised throughout the pandemic over the level of testing to help stop the spread of the virus.

On Tuesday, Stormont's health department said testing in care homes was being increased.

Health minister Robin Swann said any care home resident or staff member displaying Covid-19 symptoms would be tested as an "important measure to help residents stay safe".

At the start of the outbreak, laboratories were processing around 40 tests per day.

The Department of Health said: "That has now increased to almost 1,000 tests per day", adding: "We expect to increase our testing capacity further once AFBI labs (Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute) are operational."

It said "when fully operational in a number of weeks, it is expected that AFBI may test up to 1,000 samples per day".

Meanwhile, the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) is set to provide a breakdown of coronavirus-related deaths of people in care homes.

It follows concerns that deaths with Covid-19 in care homes were not being included in daily Public Health Agency (PHA) updates, which focus on deaths in hospital settings.

Eddie Lynch, the Commissioner for Older People for Northern Ireland, welcomed the "progress" on concerns around testing, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and recording of deaths in care homes.

"There has been progress. I have been working with representatives from the care home industry on a regular basis and we have heard of good progress being made in terms of the distribution of PPE," he told BBC Radio Ulster's Nolan Show."

"We have a moral duty as a society that we're reporting every single victim of Covid in the same way.

"Their passing has to be recognised and respected as much as anyone else."

Chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride earlier this week said registering deaths that occur outside of hospital settings is complex, but insisted that every death is collated.

The Department of Health said it was not possible for PHA's bulletins to accurately pick up on a daily basis the deaths that occur outside of hospital settings, as the process for registering deaths in the community "takes a number of days".

There are 484 care homes in Northern Ireland, with a total of around 16,000 beds.