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 improve waiting times for covid-19 PCR test results.

Laboratories in the network have target turnaround times from kit registration to communicated result of 80% within 24 hours for physical test sites and 60% within 48 hours for satellite sites. Performance metrics are tracked daily and any issues are investigated to restore performance to minimum target levels as quickly as possible. To minimise waiting times, we have designed a dynamic COVID-19 laboratory network to ensure samples can be processed as effectively as possible, minimising sample waiting time through a regional allocation model to factor in travel times, laboratory capacity and testing rates.