Travel: Coronavirus

(asked on 7th December 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Kamall on 2 November (HL3083), what changes have been made to the information required from approved suppliers of COVID-19 PCR tests since 2 November.


Answered by
Lord Kamall Portrait
Lord Kamall
This question was answered on 5th January 2022

From 12 November, all private providers are required to maintain the Government’s minimum standards for the international arrivals services they offer. The changes ensure that the standards of service of private providers are consistent with the quality expected, from initial application to throughout the lifetime of the service, to support public health. Any organisation involved in carrying out the end-to-end testing service cannot sell tests until the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has written to the appropriate organisation to confirm that the testing service meets the standard. Additionally, there have been amendments to the daily sales reporting, which as a mandatory legal requirement for all providers of international arrivals testing, must now include details in relation to tests that were cancelled that day.

Following the recent changes to international travel, from 30 November 2021, it became a legal requirement to report S-gene target failure and particularly failure for the S-gene deletion 69-70 where the diagnostic laboratory is able to identify it. The minimum standards have been updated to reflect this.

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