Coronavirus: People still being directed to distant testing centres and unable to order at-home kits

People across the UK are being directed to coronavirus testing centres in different counties because of a lack of availability at nearby sites.

Some have even reported that no home testing kits were available to order.

Andrew Blissett, 49, an analytics manager from Ravenshead, Nottinghamshire, said he had struggled to book a test after his seven-year-old daughter developed a high temperature, a symptom of Covid-19, after two days back at school. 

"It's frustrating," he told The Independent. "I went online and it mentions that everything is busy at the moment but it offered Leicester, which is 29 miles away, but I didn't mind driving there.

"But when I went into the system, it said there was nothing available on that day, or the next day, or the day after that. Basically there was nothing I could see that was actually available at Leicester.

"When I tried again a couple of hours later it said the next next available slot was in Ebbw Vale or Deeside in Wales. So now we're probably talking about an eight-hour journey at this point. So I went through the same process and could not get a slot.

"It doesn't matter how far I was willing to drive, I just could not get a test. And at that point there were no home test kits available either."

Eventually he was able to book an at-home testing kit, but said his family would have to wait until they got the results back or isolate for 14 days.

"As schools are going back, naturally people are worried about their children and hotspots occurring. But with the lack of a speedy service to identify those hotspots, it places into question whether this is creating a big problem within the schools," he said.

"I'm sat here wondering if my kids are safe at school now because this is just too slow."

There have also been complains after people were directed to test centres more than 100 miles away in recent days and weeks.

Helen Hays, Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood, shared an example from one of her constituents who had been directed 356 miles away to a testing centre in St Andrews.

She tweeted: “Cases are going up and testing couldn’t be more important in stopping further spread Matt Hancock this is utterly unacceptable. When will local tests be available to my constituents?”

Similarly, Peter Kyle, Labour MP for Hove and Portslade, tweeted about a constituent who drove a 450-mile round trip to Swansea to get a test.

He said: “Our ‘world class’ testing programme is broken (was it ever fit for purpose?).”

People have been unable to book tests because the laboratories processing them have reached a “critical pinch-point”, a senior official at NHS Test and Trace has admitted.

Director of testing Sarah-Jane Marsh apologised to those who were unable to get a Covid-19 test and added that the system is doing “all it can to expand quickly”.

“Can I please offer my heartfelt apologies to anyone who cannot get a Covid test at present,” Ms Marsh tweeted on Tuesday.

"All of our testing sites have capacity, which is why they don't look overcrowded; it's our laboratory processing that is the critical pinch-point. We are doing all we can to expand quickly.

"We have additional NHS, Lighthouse, University and Partner Labs all due to open up imminently and we are also expanding the use of non-Laboratory based tests.

"The testing team work on this 18 hours a day, seven days a week. We recognise the country is depending on us."

Matt Hancock, the health secretary, told the Health and Social Care Select Committee problems with coronavirus testing capacity will be sorted within weeks.

When asked about Ms Marsh's tweet apologising for people unable to get tests, Mr Hancock said: "We are working incredibly hard.

"We are doing everything we can. We have had these operational issues that I have talked about, we have had a problem with a couple of contracts and we discussed some of that in the House of Commons.

"But it's a matter of a couple of weeks until we can get all of that sorted in the short term."

Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said Mr Hancock needs to "get a grip".

He told the Commons: "We must do everything reasonable to suppress this virus, but instead in recent weeks we've had muddled messages, failed testing, ineffective contact-tracing.

"Winter is coming, [Mr Hancock] needs to get a grip."