Researchers from INGENIO, a joint center of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) and the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), have recently published, together with two co-authors from the University of Sussex (UK), the results of a study on the organization of the laboratory network to perform Covid-19 PCR testing during the Covid-19 pandemic in Spain and the UK and its subsequent implications.
The e-book shows how the criteria of fitness professionals in Spain (in this case clinical microbiologists in public hospitals) have had more influence on the organization of laboratories than in the United Kingdom. In the latter country, efficiency criteria have been imposed, with experts having less influence on decisions on activities. These situations have led to the creation of new centralized mega-labs, the so-called “Lighthouse Labs,” which have been criticized for their high load and low array quality.
The consequences of these decisions have been very different in both countries: while in Spain the influence of microbiologists has helped to make public hospital laboratories better prepared now than before the pandemic, in the United Kingdom the gigantic centralised laboratories built during the crisis have been dismantled and it turns out that they have not contributed to improving the country’s capacities. “
The study is based on 44 interviews with qualified personnel from both countries, from laboratory heads to fitness policy makers to public fitness specialists from both countries, in addition to research on various documents.
“Our research focuses on the discourses and practices used in the two countries that we conceptualize as ‘frontier work’, that is, discourses and practices directed from the laboratories of formulas that had PCR generation but did not meet the criteria established through the logic of fitness professionals. (in Spain) or the logic of efficacy (in the United Kingdom),” explains Enrique Meseguer, a researcher at INGENIO and co-author of the study.
Thus, it was highlighted that while in the United Kingdom state-funded clinical laboratories had a limited volume of tests, in favor of Lighthouse Labs, in Spain university or study laboratories were de facto excluded.
This work is part of the OCTS (Optimizing Coronavirus Testing Systems) project led by the University of Sussex and funded by UKRI (UK Research Systems).
Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV)
Barbera‐Tomás, D., et al. (2023). Who can “Test. Test. Test.”? The interplay between boundary work and institutions in the organisation of diagnostic testing for COVID-19. Innovation: Management, Policy and Practice. doi.org/10.1080/14479338.2023.2254740.
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