Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to integrate covid-19 testing with existing NHS community facing services; and if he will make a statement.
With the support of NHS England, we have been piloting COVID-19 swab testing in a small number general practices around the United Kingdom. The aim was to improve access to testing by enabling general practitioners to test symptomatic patients who present to general practice settings, when they deemed it clinically appropriate, for example for some patients who are vulnerable and may otherwise struggle to access a test through the main testing routes.