Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the impact on NHS budgets of the continuation of free regular asymptomatic covid-19 testing of NHS staff.

The cost of any resilience measures required are managed in agreement with relevant Government departments, including HM Treasury. In order to ensure that the ongoing cost of resilience and contingency measures, such as the continuation of free symptomatic testing in high risk settings, are met sustainably, these costs will be met within the Department’s existing Spending Review settlement.