Coronavirus testing will be extended to the police, fire service, prison officers and essential council staff, Matt Hancock has announced.
Mr Hancock told a committee of MPs the eligibility for testing would be expanded beyond patients, NHS staff and care home workers with suspected symptoms.
He said "police, fire service, prison staff, critical local authority staff, the judiciary and Department for Work and Pensions staff who need it" will also be able to get tested for the virus.
He said the expansion was possible because capacity was being increased.
Mr Hancock said: "Now we've got the curve under control, I want to be able to get back to the position that we can test everybody with symptoms and I anticipate being able to do that relatively soon because we're increasing capacity as I say.
"I can now give you the full figures for yesterday - at midday yesterday, we'd done 18,665 tests in the previous 24 hours, 16,166 from pillar one, 2,323 from pillar two, and 176 from pillar four."
The pillars refer to different types of testing.
- Pillar one is swab testing for the most critical key workers and patients with clinical need.
- Pillar two is mass swab testing for critical key workers in the NHS and social care.
- Pillar three is antibody testing, which is not yet available.
- And pillar four is 'surveillance' testing to learn more about the disease and track its spread.
He added: "So I know history of testing is going to be a long debated subject. What really matters is what we're going to do from here on in.
"And what I can tell you is that today we are able to expand the eligibility for testing which is currently for patients, for surveys and for NHS and social care staff, and some that go to LRFs for local urgent need.
"I can today expand the eligibility for testing to police, the fire service, prison staff, critical local authority staff, the judiciary and DWP staff who need it and we're able to do that because of the scale-up of testing."
Mr Hancock admitted it was "frustrating" that just over 18,600 tests had been performed, despite official capacity being 30,000 per day.
Mr Hancock said that the number of NHS staff who have come forward to be tested for the virus has been lower than expected.
He said: "Within the NHS, the number of staff coming forward for testing is lower than was anticipated.
"You'll understand why we had a priority order for the use of the test where it was patients first, then NHS staff.
"Frankly, the number of NHS staff coming forward wasn't as high as expected and therefore we extended it very quickly both to residents and staff in social care.
"But because capacity is going up sharply, I'm therefore able to expand it further and we'll expand it again as soon as the capacity is there to make sure that that capacity is used up."
Mr Hancock said that more than 50,000 NHS workers have now been tested for coronavirus.
"I can tell you that over 50,000 people that work in the NHS have now had tests," he said.
Pushed on whether he has an estimate for the number of health workers who have been infected, he added: "No I don't. What I have is an estimate of the proportion who are off work because they either have suspected Covid-19 or a household member does, which is a little over 8%.
"And obviously with the expansion of testing we hope to be able to get that figure down."
Asked whether the Government will be changing its advice for pregnant healthcare workers in light of the death of Mary Agyeiwaa Agyapong, Mr Hancock said: "The first thing is to say that we work very closely with the Royal Colleges and whether guidance comes from the Royal Colleges, Public Health England or the NHS, we try to ensure that guidance comes from the most appropriate body for that particular group and we work very closely together."
But earlier, Dr Alison Pittard of the Royal College of Nursing said some NHS staff had struggled to get testing.
She told the same committee: "There is an issue about how we get nurses and others to be able to be tested, because it's not quite clear.
"You would expect an employer if you started to become ill that you would be able to have a defined place where to go. That your employer, occupational health would instruct you where to go.
"What I'm hearing from the front line is nurses sometimes driving two hours, feeling very unwell with possible symptoms of coronavirus and driving to testing station.
"Sometimes if you haven't got an appointment you're turned away only to be told to come back another time, so we need some really clear direction on how we can access testing both in the NHS but more so for social care because they don't have the same infrastructure as the NHS."
