NHS: Coronavirus

(asked on 19th March 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the merits of introducing mandatory testing for covid-19 for all (a) NHS and (b) care staff.


Answered by
Nadine Dorries Portrait
Nadine Dorries
This question was answered on 27th April 2020

The Government must prioritise and understand that National Health Service staff want to get tested so they can return to the frontline as fast as possible. Early on the decision was taken that seriously ill patients had to come first. For them, a test can mean the difference between life and death.

On 4 April, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care advised that ‘our ultimate goal is that anyone who needs a test should have one. We will get there through a phased approach, starting with patients who need the test, expanding to NHS workers and their families as we are now doing, then other critical key workers as we ramp up further, and then expanding to the wider community over time. Our testing strategy has five pillars, which this document sets out in full’.

The full document, published on 4 April 2020, can be found at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/878121/coronavirus-covid-19-testing-strategy.pdf

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