This test will confirm if you currently have coronavirus. You can have this test if you are currently symptomatic or 5 days after initial exposure. Typical symptoms include a high temperature, a new, continuous cough, or a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste.

Testing will be available for patients of all ages.

If you believe you have had symptoms of coronavirus, the most recognisable being a high temperature, a continuous cough, or a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste, an antibody test will confirm whether the illness was in fact due to COVID-19.

Recent studies also suggest that many people only experience mild or even no symptoms at all and so an antibody test would similarly be suitable in this situation if you simply want to know whether you’ve had coronavirus or not.

You can have the test if you are more than 21 days post symptoms. This test will be invalid if done earlier than this.

The test detects whether you have developed antibodies as a result of coronavirus infection, a typical response by your body’s immune system in order to fight infection. There is currently no strong evidence yet to suggest that the presence of antibodies confers long-lasting immunity which would prevent you from getting the virus again, however there’s clear value in knowing depending on your own circumstances, if you’re at risk yourself or to other vulnerable family, friends or colleagues

Our Laboratory normally processes and returns results within 24-48 hours for the antibody blood tests and 2-3 working days for swabs and from receiving the test at the laboratory. This is not a guarantee, as NHS samples may need to be prioritised at certain times.

You will be emailed by one of the MyHealthcare team as soon as your result is available. All positive results are reviewed by one of our GPs.

A positive result indicates the presence of ‘anti-SARS-COV-2’ IgG antibodies which are produced following infection. This means you have had coronavirus (COVID-19) in the past.

This does not indicate immunity so it is important to continue following the current Public Health and Government advice on social distancing and hygiene measures.

A negative result means no ‘anti-SARS-COV-2’ antibodies were detected i.e. there is no evidence of past infection.

A small number of people who receive a negative result may be surprised by this. This negative result could be for a variety of reasons:

• Every person produces a different antibody response to an infection: some will develop a strong response which is detectable, whilst others only develop a weak antibody response to the same infection which may not be detectable on testing.
• Antibody levels decrease over time in all patients. Unfortunately there is currently no clear research detailing this time period.
• There are a multitude of other highly prevalent viruses in circulation that cause the same symptoms as COVID-19, such as rhinoviruses or influenza. Therefore, you may have had a different virus causing your symptoms rather than suffering from coronavirus.
• There is some new research indicating that some people could be protected by a different part of the immune system (called T-Cells) although this isn’t something that is available for testing.

All our tests have been sourced from multinational pharmaceutical companies including Roche AG and Abbott Laboratories, Inc.

Our partner laboratories are fully accredited and currently provide large scale testing to the UK government and other high-demand institutions such as hospitals and airports.

All this guarantees test reliability and turnaround times.

To minimise the risk to our patients and staff, we will only allow one patient onto the premises at any one time, therefore please attend your appointment alone.

The premises will also be decontaminated between appointments, so we also ask that you attend your appointment on time to allow for decontamination.