HSE chief executive says he acknowledges service ‘needs to improve’ turnaround times

The Health Service Executive (HSE) chief executive Paul Reid has said a target will be introduced next week to turn around testing and tracing in 90 per cent of cases within three days.
Mr Reid has said he acknowledges the service needs to improve its contact tracing and testing capacity and turnaround times.
Speaking at a HSE operational briefing in University College Dublin today, Paul Reid outlined a new road map for testing and tracing which has been agreed by the health service, the government, the Department of Health and the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET)
We need to improve where weve been at, he said, while defending progress made to date. We have faced very significant backlogs which resulted in a very poor experience for many people, he said, adding the HSE had been rightly judged and held to account.
However, he said the health service had met or exceeded all its targets on swabbing and testing capacity, as well as turnaround time for tests to be completed and contact tracing to be completed.
It comes amid scrutiny of the states contact tracing and testing process, seen as a key element of relaxing restrictions on movement and other measures over the course of the summer. Experts have said current timelines are too slow relative to where they should be to help ensure the disease is kept under control as lockdown measures are relaxed.
According to documents presented by Mr Reid, by Monday, testing capacity will be 15,000 per day. Swab to result time will be between one and two days, and end to end turnaround times will be three days or less.
On May 5th, the swab to result time was 2-3 days, and end to end turnaround time was around five days
He said the HSE is now using a variety of different systems for testing and tracing, which can cause difficulties.
What we are dealing with is a whole history of legacy systems all across the country. He said we are dealing with a range of separate systems that often do not talk to each other. He said increased automation will aid turnaround times.