Matt Hancock sets target of 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by end of April
The government has struck a deal to work with the private sector and universities to reach a tenfold increase in daily coronavirus tests by the end of the month.
Health secretary Matt Hancock unveiled a five-point plan at today’s daily press briefing to increase testing rates to 100,000 tests per day in just a few weeks.
Hancock’s plan is underpinned by a partnership with private sector companies, including Amazon and Boots, to open new testing laboratories across the country.
The health secretary said five trial labs had already been set up and that 5,0000 NHS staff had been tested at these facilities.
It comes as the government has been under fire for the UK’s low testing rates, currently around 10,000 per day, when compared to other OECD countries.
Hancock said he was “going to level with” people and that the reason the UK is far behind countries such as Germany, because “we didn’t go into this crisis with a huge diagnostics industry”.
He said there had also been a global shortage of the chemical reagents needed in Covid-19 testing.
“My German counterpart could call on 100 test labs that were ready and waiting – we have had to build from a lower base,” Hancock said.
Hancock’s plan will also revolve around upping the rate of swab testing in Public Health England (PHE) labs within hospitals, building up a larger national diagnostics industry and bringing in antibody tests as fast as possible.
Antibody tests show if someone has had the virus in the past and is therefore immune.
Hancock also addressed concerns that NHS frontline staff were not getting tested for Covid-19, saying that PHE was “expanding testing for NHS staff further” and that “anyone who needs a test should have one”.
The government came under criticism yesterday after it was revealed that just 2,000 frontline NHS England staff, out of more than half a million, had been tested for Covid-19.
Five doctors have now died with the virus, with many other frontline staff being forced to stay home with coronvirus symptoms.
Hancock said that he does not regret starting NHS staff testing earlier, after it only began last weekend.
“The first priority has to be the patients, for the result of their tests is the difference between getting treatment that is between life and death,” Hancock said.
“I believe anybody in my shoes would have taken the same decision.”