Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether NHS patients will be able to obtain through their GPs a test to establish if they have COVID-19 as part of their NHS primary care services; and if so, when.

With the support of NHS England, we have been piloting COVID-19 swab testing in a small number of general practices around the United Kingdom. The aim was to improve access to testing by enabling general practitioners to test symptomatic patients who present to general practice settings, when deemed it clinically appropriate, for example for some patients who are vulnerable and may otherwise struggle to access a test through the main testing routes.