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 expand rapid testing for covid-19 in hospitals to the parents of newborn babies in neonatal units.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, services have been working hard to support parents to care for their babies as much as possible while still ensuring that services are safe.

Testing is a key part of the United Kingdom’s response to COVID-19, and, following the publication of the Government’s Testing Strategy we have rapidly expanded our capacity.

We are now providing testing to anyone with symptoms (England and Northern Ireland; over fives in Wales and Scotland) Current clinical advice is that asymptomatic testing can be conducted where clinically appropriate, for outbreak investigation and infection control. These decisions are made by local decision makers based on patient and procedural risk.