Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to his Department's announcement of 19 May 2020 on social media that data for the number of people tested was unavailable, when (a) daily and (b) cumulative figures will be reported; and for what reasons those figures have not been reported since 22 May 2020.

The ‘people tested’ measure was initially used to count people who had not been previously received a test, deliberately excluding subsequent instances an individual would have been tested if they had been tested once or more previously. It no longer usefully reflects the volume of tests carried out as, for example, a healthcare worker receiving their second, third or fourth test since the start of the pandemic would not be counted as they have been tested once before. Therefore, the people tested figure will be published on a weekly, rather than daily, basis within the NHS Test and Trace statistics at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/nhs-test-and-trace-statistics-england-weekly-reports