Results of millions of Covid-19 tests are not being recorded, it has emerged.
A study by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) revealed that since testing started a total of 10.5 million tests have been “made available” but only eight million of those have been “processed”.
It means that as many as more than two million tests are either not being sent back to laboratories or are being voided.
The UK Government accepted that some people were deciding not to return a test kit for examination.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman told reporters: “It will be the case that some members of the public may order a test and then for whatever reason they choose not to return that test.
“Obviously, if people are ordering tests it is entirely right that we should provide them with one.”
The spokesman said he had not seen a “verified number on this” when the DHSC figures were put to him.
It comes as the UK Government announced it will stop revealing how many people had been tested every day was because the statistic did not take into account someone who had been tested multiple times since the outbreak started.
The figure had not been made public for several weeks.
The PM’s spokesman said: “DHSC will no longer publish the number of people tested daily anymore and will instead publish the number of daily tests processed.
“This is because the daily people tested statistic only counts new people being tested.
“For example, someone who is tested in February and then tested again this month will only be counted once.
“Considering hospital and care home staff are now being tested on a regular basis, we don’t think this statistic would be an accurate reflection of the amount of daily testing that is taking place.
“Test and trace statistics published weekly will still include the number of people who have been tested.”
