Lateral flow tests: Demand outstripping supply in Northern Ireland, says Community Pharmacy NI chief

Amid UK-wide reports of “patchy” supplies, Community Pharmacy NI chief executive Gerard Greene said an increase in demand for the tests appears to be causing similar difficulties here.

He stressed, however, that a clearer picture of the supply issue would not be available until later this week.

Demand for the tests, which are being made available free of charge via hundreds of pharmacies across Northern Ireland and are in widespread use in care facilities, schools and other settings, has increased across the UK amid record coronavirus infection levels fuelled by the omicron variant.

While daily coronavirus data has not been published by the Department of Health in Northern Ireland since before Christmas, the number of new cases being reported in both Britain and the Republic of Ireland has reached new highs in recent days.

Mr Greene, speaking to the News Letter, said: “Before Christmas, there certainly was a supply problem. I don’t think it was that Northern Ireland didn’t have the test kits, they just couldn’t get them out to the pharmacies.

“It may have been a logisitical or distribution problem, but they certainly increased or ramped up the supplies going out in the last week.

“But with the whole public health messaging at the minute, everybody is very keen to get lateral flows so demand is probably outstripping supply at the minute.”

He continued: “Now, we’ll not know what the full picture is until it’s a day or two into this week.

“We’ve certainly been on to the Department of Health to try and boost the supplies getting out to pharmacies, because there’s no point putting out a public health message to try and encourage people to use lateral flows if nobody can get them.

“Pharmacies will give them out to people, certainly, but we have to have them to give them.

“It would appear that at the minute that it can be patchy enough getting the supplies.”

He urged people unable to find a lateral flow test to ‘shop around’, saying: “Now, if you’re in a main street pharmacy then they are going to be very much in demand but perhaps in an outlying pharmacy they might still have some - so it could be a case of people having to shop around.”