Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that blood tests are accessible within an acceptable timeframe during the covid-19 outbreak.

Throughout the pandemic all services remained available to meet the clinical need of patients using the National Health Service. Pathology networks deployed staff and services accordingly to ensure that testing for COVID-19 was maximised and that other services were also available within the usual timeframe expected by clinicians to manage their patients.