NHS staff will get home kits to start testing themselves for coronavirus “starting today”, Matt Hancock has confirmed.
The Health Secretary outlined details of a plan leaked last night to hugely expand the use of rapid tests.
The so-called ‘lateral flow’ tests, which don’t need a lab and give results within an hour, are still in pilot phases.
However, they are being used to test the entire population of Liverpool and being rolled out to 67 English councils, as well as some universities.
Matt Hancock told the House of Commons: "These tests allow us from today to begin rolling out twice-weekly testing for all NHS staff.
“[This] will help keep people safe when they go into hospital and help keep my wonderful colleagues in the NHS safe too."
Not all NHS trusts have been given home testing kits today and tests will not go to all NHS staff.
A letter from Prof Stephen Powis of NHS England, leaked last night, said they would go to “all patient-facing NHS staff” whether they have symptoms or not.
He said the first 34 hospital trusts in England would deploy the technology this week, affecting 250,000 staff, with a full rollout to follow by the end of next week.
NHS England said “a number of” kits have been given to all trusts today, and the capacity will be increased overnight and as the week continues.
Mr Powis explained in his letter: “Staff will be asked to test themselves at home twice a week with results available before coming into work.”
Mr Hancock told the Commons: "We have been driving forward testing capacity based on new technologies and old. Yesterday our PCR testing capacity stood at 517,957 - the largest capacity in Europe.
"Over 10 million people in the UK have now been tested at least once through NHS Test and Trace and our NHS Covid-19 contact tracing app is now approaching 20 million downloads."
