Oral Answers to Questions

Mike Wood Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Maggie Throup]

The hon. Lady makes a really good point. I reassure her that procedures for urgent cases have not been cancelled. As the House knows, we are looking at the private sector to help deliver vital support for those patients.

[Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)]

4. What assessment he has made of the capacity of the UK’s covid-19 testing infrastructure in comparison to other countries.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)]

The UK continues to provide one of the highest testing rates globally. We have increased capacity for PCR testing by over 200,000 tests per day since December. Home delivery capacity is now at 7 million lateral flow tests every day, with community pharmacies supplying an additional 9.5 million tests last week. In comparison to England, countries that have put in place more restrictions might have chosen a different balance between lateral flow devices and PCRs to meet their individual testing demands. Therefore, we cannot meaningfully compare our testing infrastructure to that of other countries.

[Mike Wood]

I thank the Minister for that answer. Health and social care workers who care for some of the most clinically vulnerable members of our society were rightly prioritised for early vaccination. Does she agree that, similarly, they must be prioritised for testing? What is she doing to ensure that?

[Maggie Throup]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The most vulnerable people are being prioritised. The UK Health Security Agency and NHS Test and Trace currently deliver an average of more than 70,000 PCR kits and 970,000 LFD kits a week to adult social care settings. In recent weeks, as demand has increased due to the omicron wave, Dudley, like other local authorities, has provided tests to key workers to enable them to keep working.