The UK will carry out 100,000 tests for Coronavirus every day by
the end of this month, Health Secretary pledged today.
Increased testing for the NHS will form part of a new 5-pillar
plan, bringing together government, industry, academia, the NHS
and many others, to dramatically increase the number of tests
being carried out each day across the UK.
the Director of
Health Improvement, Public Health England, has been appointed to
help deliver the new plans and bring together industry,
universities, NHS and government behind the ambitious testing
targets.
He will coordinate a national effort with global manufacturers
encouraged to expand their manufacturing capacity here in the UK;
our strongest, home grown businesses in life sciences and other
industries are encouraged to turn their resources to creating and
rolling out mass testing at scale, and the government will
support anyone across the UK with a scalable scientific idea or
innovation to start a business.
New testing capabilities for the NHS and their families will
support staff who are isolating at home to return safely to work
if the test is negative, and keep themselves and others safe if
the test is positive.
Significant progress to increase testing has already taken place
across the country to protect the vulnerable, support our NHS,
and ultimately save lives. New testing centres have been
established at the main hotspots of the disease, and the UK has
already conducted more than 152,000 tests. The 5-pillar plan sets
targets to expand the UK’s capability further.
The new 5-pillar plan outlines the ambitions to:
- Scale up swab testing in PHE labs and NHS hospitals for those
with a medical need and the most critical workers to 25,000 a day
by mid to late April;
- Deliver increased commercial swab testing for critical key
workers in the NHS, before then expanding to key workers in other
sectors;
- Develop blood testing to help know if people have the right
antibodies and so have high levels of immunity to coronavirus;
- Conduct surveillance testing to learn more about the spread
of the disease and help develop new tests and treatments; and
- Create a new National Effort for testing, to build a
mass-testing capacity at a completely new scale.
Once widespread testing is available, the UK will prioritise
repeated testing of critical key workers, to keep them safe and
make sure that they do not spread the virus.
Over time, plans announced today will also see increasing focus
on testing to see if people have already had the virus, to
identify if they have the antibodies that will give them immunity
against catching it again. This science is new and developing,
but the aim is for a successful test that can be rolled out at
scale, that could allow critical workers - and then the wider
population - to return to work and their daily lives.
