ARC EM researcher leading on COVID-19 care home testing research

Professor Adam Gordon is leading the care home arm of a study into a national testing platform for Point of Care Tests for coronavirus.

Professor Gordon, who is the ARC East Midlands Theme lead for Building Community Resilience and Enabling Independence, is playing a crucial role in the CONDOR study, a £1.3 million national research programme to evaluate coronavirus tests in hospitals, general practices and care homes.

Professor Gordon’s team is working with care homes to implement and evaluate Point of Care tests for routine COVID testing of staff and residents. They have just completed testing of their first technology deployed in four care homes, three in East Midlands, and one in Yorkshire.

The tests were conducted in 278 staff and residents, with care home staff collecting nasopharyngeal swab samples and running all testing equipment in the care homes. Test results were available after 80 minutes.

Professor Gordon said: “We found that the equipment was highly usable, with a low error rate by care home staff. We identified some important issues that could impair usability, with how staff were trained to use the machine, and with some stages of the test. The manufacturer has already worked to improve these based upon our recognition.

“Most importantly, we showed that the test has very high specificity (99%), and good sensitivity (86%) meaning that it’s an effective way to rule out COVID in this population”

Professor Gordon is also the Professor of the Care of Older People at the University of Nottingham. He is also a Consultant Geriatrician at Royal Derby Hospital and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the British Geriatrics Society.