Nearly 150 patients may have been wrongly told they had caught coronavirus, a hospital trust has admitted.
Nearly 80 patients at Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton, Somerset may have been incorrectly told they had coronavirus when they did not.
And a further 69 people are being contacted ‘as a precaution’ who may also have been given false-positive results, reports Somerset Live.
The Somerset NHS Foundation Trust expressed its “heartfelt apologies” to those affected by this error after initially not revealing the scale of the problem.
The potentially distressing blunder comes as the first results of the government’s NHS Test and Trace were published.
Dr Daniel Meron, Chief Medical Officer for Somerset NHS Foundation Trust, said 78 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 after their swabs were analysed on the fast track machine between May 27-June 4 were told they may have been “incorrectly diagnosed”.
Dr Meron added the hospital is trying to contact a further 69 patients who were diagnosed with coronavirus after testing positive before May 27, from May 7 onwards – who may have been tested with the same type of faulty swab.
Patients falsely diagnosed with COVID-19 would have been put into isolation, and any members of their household told not to leave home for any reason for 14 days.
Dr Meron said: “The laboratory is conducting a full investigation to understand what has caused this.
“Early indications are that it was potentially caused by a change in the kind of swabs that were in use from May 27, coinciding with the increase in positive test results that we recorded from that date.”
On Thursday, the head of the NHS Test and Trace programme key to preventing a second wave of infections while easing the lockdown admitted it is not yet “gold standard”.
Baroness Harding insisted it was “fit for purpose” after figures showed a third of people who tested positive could not be reached by officials or failed to provide details of their contacts.
The lockdown was being eased across the UK amid concerns of the impacts it was having on people’s wellbeing and the economy.