Staff at the trust which runs Basingstoke hospital are being told of negative coronavirus tests via text, thanks to rapid development.

The move is saving staff at Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT) many hours that would otherwise have been spent on administration and telephone calls.

It also gets negative results to staff faster, allowing them to end self-isolation and get back to work quicker if they are symptom free.

CliniSys, a diagnostics workflow company, worked in collaboration with Shaun Goldsmith, microbiology system manager at HHFT, to develop a new functionality in their Integrated Clinical Environment (ICE) application.

Mr Goldsmith said: “Our ambition is to run 1,000 Covid-19 tests a day, so we needed an automated or near-automated way to get the negative results to staff.

“Using ICE to generate text messages will speed up the process and avoid lots and lots of telephone calls. It will also enable the trust to focus on calling those people who do test positive, who will need support and advice.”

Andrew Pickering, account manager at CliniSys, said: “Hampshire Hospitals came to us with a problem and we were able to develop a solution within three weeks.

“We have already seen interest from other ICE customers in this functionality, and there is real potential for it to support the roll-out of mass testing, as promised by the government. There is also the potential for labs to use SMS to streamline results reporting in the future.”