Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help ensure all covid-19 testing centres have access to adequate supplies of test swab sticks.

Swab supply has not been a limiting factor in the national testing programme. A swab sourcing team in NHS Test and Trace has been working for months with many international manufacturers of swabs and, in tandem, have identified and are working closely with a number of United Kingdom-based manufacturers who have increased capacity significantly since the start of the crisis.

This approach is ensuring we have sustainable supplies going forward. Saliva testing is also being explored as an alternative sample collection method that will likely give additional supply options and capacity.