Leading British healthcare and testing company Salutaris People – which operates the rapid PCR testing services for airline passengers at Liverpool John Lennon Airport, in partnership with Test Assurance Group (TAG), has unveiled a brand new COVID testing laboratory at Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

The state-of-the-art facility is in partnership with Source BioScience – a leading international provider of laboratory services to clients in the pharmaceutical industry, healthcare, clinical, life science research and biopharma industries – and Salutaris People in partnership with Test Assurance Group Ltd (TAG) are providing COVID and PCR testing at Liverpool John Lennon airport.

The new laboratory has been designed to perform 500 tests per day but can easily be increased in scale to facilitate 1000 tests and beyond if required. Source BioScience are Accredited to ISO 15189: 2012 standards and is also  a DHSC listed provider of COVID-19 testing.

The new facility – the only one of its kind at a UK airport – is operated by four laboratory tech staff including a shift supervisor and has 8 PCR analysers on site, a Bio Molecular Systems liquid handler and a thermal cycler to offer a rapid real-time qualitative PCR method for the detection of SARS-CoV-2.

The service enables airline passengers at Liverpool John Lennon Airport and those flying from other UK airports with a Rapid Fit to Fly testing service with a turnaround time of three hours, alongside a Standard 24 hour Fit to Fly testing service.  Samples are also collected on site at Liverpool and processed at Source Bioscience’s main laboratory in Nottingham enabling Day 2, Day 8, Test to Release and a diagnostic PCR COVID testing service for customers.

For airline passengers using Liverpool John Lennon airport, or any other UK airport for that matter, they can book a test with confidence, knowing their COVID test will be administered by trained healthcare staff and then processed on site within our laboratory, with results back in three hours or 24 hours depending on the service chosen.

Commenting on the new facilities at Liverpool airport, commercial director Lucy O’Shaughnessy, said: “We are delighted to be the first airport in the UK to have such a unique facility and service. Liverpool John Lennon Airport can now provide our valued airline passengers with a state-of-the-art COVID testing facility on site here at the airport as we start to resume our flight schedules and have more passengers flying again.”