Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate his Department has made of the cost of (a) an enriched culture medium test performed in an NHS hospital and (b) processing a home-testing pack for the diagnosis of group B streptococus infection.

Information is not available centrally on laboratory costs.

In June 2015, Public Health England (PHE), in response to requests to introduce the enriched culture medium (ECM) test into PHE laboratories, advised and published a position paper which sets out that within current accepted clinical guidelines, there are no indications for testing women using ECM methods. The position paper is available on the gov.uk website at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/group-b-streptococcus-infection-enriched-culture-medium-test