The head of Test and Trace has said that she doesn’t believe “anybody was expecting to see the really sizeable increase in demand” for coronavirus tests.
Baroness Dido Harding’s comments in front of the Commons Science and Technology Committee come after some residents in COVID-19 hotspots complained they were finding it difficult to get tested.
Some have been told that tests are only available hundreds of miles away from where they live.
Greg Clark, the chair of the committee, told her: “It is dispiriting to find that we are now in September, in circumstances which are entirely predictable – people are going back to school, people are going back to work – and we haven’t had the right capacity put in place during the quieter times of June, July and August.”
Elsewhere during the session, Baroness Harding confirmed that key workers are going to be prioritised for coronavirus tests – with teachers “likely to be top of that list ” so schools can “remain functioning”.
Mr Clark told Baroness Harding that “clearly you didn’t prepare enough”.
She insisted that it hasn’t been a quiet summer for the Test and Trace programme, but admitted: “Plainly we don’t have enough testing capacity.”
She added that about 50% of tests are being reserved for hospital patients, social care staff and residents, and NHS workers – including GPs and pharmacists.
