The shortage of coronavirus test slots hitting outbreak hotspots across the UK is likely to last for “weeks” the Health Secretary has admitted.
Matt Hancock was responding to an urgent question in parliament on Tuesday, amid reports of people are being told to travel to the other side of the country to get checked, or that no test is available at all.
Asked by chair of the health select committee Jeremy Hunt whether he was still confident that the problem could be solved next week, Mr Hancock replied: “I think we will be able to solve this problem in a matter of weeks … we are managing to deliver record capacity, but as he well knows demand is also high”.
MP after MP stood up in the debate to warn the government that people in their local area had been unable to get tested. Sarah Owen, MP for Luton North, said: “We’ve heard case after case of failure when it comes to testing.
“I’ve heard from parents, teachers, a vicar in Luton North all saying there are no walk-in tests, no drive-through tests, and no home kits available when they need it. The secretary of state talks about capacity but what we need to see is access to testing. Capacity is nothing without access to testing.”
Mr Hancock claimed that “the vast majority of people do” get tested.
The backlog is thought to have been caused by a shortage of laboratory processing capacity for tests, which authorities say has created a “critical pinch-point” in the system. The failure has seen tests sent abroad to be processed, despite claims from the government that its system would be “world-beating”.
In mid-August Mr Hancock had promised “mass testing, population-wide testing” would come to the UK, but offered no timeframe.
Despite previously encouraging more people to get tested and blaming the public for not coming forward, the government has now switched to warning people not to get a test unless they have a good reason. Mr Hancock said last week the recent increase in demand was driven by people who “aren’t eligible”.
Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s shadow health secretary told MPs: “There are no tests available in Covid hotspots including Rochdale, Pendle, and Bradford. Over the weekend in Bolton where infections are highest in the country a mobile testing centre failed to turn up. Meanwhile in Bury hundreds queued for five hours for a test. In Walsall a father with his sick child travelled 76 miles to an appointment in Wales only to find on arrival that tests have run out.
“Increasing numbers of teachers and pupils are not in school; in hospitals operations are cancelled while NHS staff are stuck in limbo waiting for tests, and he blames increased demand. But when tracing fails to reach 80 per cent of contacts, when less than 20 per cent of those with symptoms self-isolate properly and there is a lack of financial security, infections rise. When schools reopen and people return to workplaces and social distancing becomes harder, infections rise.
“Extra demand on the system was inevitable, so why didn’t he use the summer to significantly expand NHS lab capacity and fix contract tracing?”
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Mr Hancock replied that the “good news” was that “capacity for testing is at a record high”. He said 9,278 tests were processed in the top ten local authority areas for infections.
“Record numbers of people are able to get tests. I don’t deny that it is an enormous challenge and when you have a free service, it’s inevitable that demand rises. The challenge is to make sure that we prioritise the tests we have as a nation … the backlog is actually falling and is less than one day’s test processing capacity,” he said.
