Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government why they stopped funding workplace testing for COVID-19; and whether that decision will be kept under review.

Workplace testing ended in England at the end of July and employers were encouraged to direct their employees to order home tests from GOV.UK, collect from local pharmacies or order via the 119 service. The introduction of these citizen-direct testing channels meant that workplace testing was no longer required. Workplace testing will continue in some sectors where there is a particular need and the Department will continue to monitor any issues in other sectors. We have also announced that we will deliver tests to workplaces to allow 100,000 workers in priority, critical roles to test daily for the next five weeks. Roll out started from Monday 10th January. Tests will be separate from public sectors who already have a testing allocation with UK Health Security Agency, such as adult social care or education, and separate to those delivered to pharmacies and homes, so those channels will not be impacted by the new scheme.