Coronavirus: Screening

(asked on 20th April 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many people have been tested for covid-19 upon admission to hospital, on each day since 1 January 2020.


Answered by
Nadine Dorries Portrait
Nadine Dorries
This question was answered on 7th July 2020

The Department recognises the importance of transparency and publishing information on COVID-19 testing but must balance this with the accuracy of the data.

Data on the number of people tested across the whole of the United Kingdom requires a range of complex data sets from multiple organisations, including those held by the devolved administrations, to be reconciled to identify unique individuals. The process is complex, and we are not yet content that the data we have available is robust enough to provide an accurate picture.

The Department is working with the data owners to resolve the issues that currently prevent it from publishing the number of people tested. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and have committed to publishing this information going forward.

In terms of testing people upon admission to hospital, an operating framework has been published on the NHS England website which advises on management of urgent and planned services within hospital. In the case of day interventions, testing and isolation is determined locally, based on patient and procedural risk. The framework is available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2020/05/Operating-framework-for-urgent-and-planned-services-within-hospitals.pdf

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