FAILING THE TEST
Just HALF of coronavirus tests being used but ministers STILL say 100k will be reached
JUST half of all yesterday's available coronavirus tests were used - as the Government promised they would reach 100,000 a day by the end of the month.
Shocking stats out today revealed that only 18,206 tests were carried out in the run up to 9am today, but there was capacity for 39,250 to be done.
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That means less than half of the spots were filled, where NHS staff, their families, care home staff, police or prison staff could have been tested.
This is down on 19,316 the day before and 21,626 the day before that.
27 drive-through sites are now open across the country, with the aim for 50 by the end of the month.
It piles pressure on Health Secretary Matt Hancock who is in a race against time to hit his target of 100,000 tests a day in just eight days’ time.
No10 refused to say why not enough people were getting the tests, even though they had the room for them.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: "Ministers have been very clear any spare capacity should be used to test NHS staff and their families.
";As a result of increased capacity, other critical care workers can also now get tests so they can continue their vital work on frontline.
"You can see the efforts being made to try and get more people to undergo these tests.
"The Care Quality Commission has reached out to almost 25000 care settings, we want the capacity to be used."
Furious medics blamed the woeful numbers on bureaucracy, and said they face having to travel for hours to get a test at the drive-thru centres.
NHS staff living in the West Country would have to make a 150 mile round trip to the site in Plymouth to get a test.
While doctors and nurses have said they have been away at the gates of the testing sites because they don’t have an appointment.
Other reports suggested people were making the appointments and not turning up."
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, council chairman of the British Medical Association, called for home testing kits for medics.
He said: "While availability is improving in some areas, we’re still aware that many are unable to access tests.
“These drive-through centres require patients to attend in their own transport – and in some cases can be an hour’s drive away.”
He added: “Isolating staff do want to be tested, but, as the Government has already admitted, there is confusion about how workers can go about this.
“That’s why it’s essential the Government and NHS England put greater effort into communicating how healthcare workers can get tested and provide home-testing to those unable to travel, so that thousands of dedicated staff can get back to work and, most importantly, save lives.”
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Jeremy Hunt, former health secretary and chairman of the health select committee, called for ordinary Brits who fear they are infected to be able to get a test.
He told The Sun: “Until March 12 you could call 111 and get a test done in the community and that is the thing which now needs to happen.
“If we are struggling to get the demand for the NHS and key workers now is the time to introduce it into the community.”
The PM’s spokesman said: “Ministers have been very clear that any spare capacity should be used to test NHS and social care staff and their families.
“As a result of the increased capacity we have available other critical care workers can now also get tests so they can continue their vital work on the frontline.”
Ministers have rolled out testing to cops, firefighters and some council staff in recent days.
The Government insisted they were "absolutely standing by" the aims to tests 100,000 a day by the end of the month.
And it backed Matt Hancock after reports that ministers in Cabinet were becoming frustrated by his approach.
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Of the fall in Covid testing capacity over the weekend, the PM’s spokesman said: "There has been a small dip while commercial partners make adjustments to their processes.
"The demand from the NHS was not as expected, which is why we’re rolling out eligibility criteria for others now. Where we have the capacity we want to use it.
"We do think we’re on course to meet the target of 100,000 tests.
"It’s for the NHS to refer people to go for testing.”
Professor Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, said: “It is essential that GPs, and all other health and social care professionals, who are working on the frontline have access to testing."
He added: “We have welcomed the Government's pledge of more testing in recent weeks, including in care homes, but we need to see testing increased in the wider community.
"We understand increasing testing at such pace to reach 100,000 a day by the end of the month will be an incredible logistical challenge, but it will be necessary in helping us to come out of this crisis.”
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A No10 spokesman said: “The NHS is doing a fantastic job and the nation will want to find a way to say thank you when we have defeated this virus.”
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Meanwhile Government insiders and some members of the Cabinet started turning on Health Secretary Matt Hancock, as the target looked less and less likely to be readed.
One scathing minister told The Sun last week: “Hancock isn’t going to meet his target – we need Hancock to stop gambling with his pledges.”
Wales yesterday announced it was abandoning its own daily target of 5,000 tests a day of key workers as it couldn't meet it.
An insider close to Downing Street told the Daily Telegraph that the Health Secretary's target was "arbitary".
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They said: "The problem is with this arbitrary target. There is a faint irrationality behind it, just because there was a clamour for mass testing.
"Hancock's 100,000 target was a response to a criticism in the media and he decided to crank out tests regardless.
"He's not had a good crisis. The Prime Minister will say he has confidence in him but it doesn't feel like that.
But an ally of Mr Hancock said: "Anyone who thinks Matt just walked into a No10 press conference and came out with his own figure doesn't have a clue how Government works.
"It was a Government target, arrived at by looking at what capacity there was in the NHS and the private sector and then setting an ambitious goal. The aim at the time was to get key workers who were self-isolating back to work if they did not have the virus."
A No10 spokesman said: "We agreed the figure before it was announced and it remains a Government target."
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The Sun says
WE sympathise with Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary unenviably copping the flak for every Covid setback. But he has to stop spinning and be honest.
Let us say first, though, that he is right to rejoice that the NHS and its increased capacity has coped so far with this catastrophe. And that the nation HAS heeded the call to protect it and save lives.
In fact we have gone far further, raising millions for NHS staff via hero Captain Tom Moore and The Sun’s Who Cares Wins appeal — while big-hearted volunteers are working flat-out to sew together much-needed PPE and scrubs.
And it is potentially fantastic news that human vaccine trials start in Oxford tomorrow, an amazing feat given that these processes normally take years.
Those are all positives. But Mr Hancock should stop pretending his testing strategy is anything but a fiasco.
Tests are going DOWN. He promised 100,000 a day by next Thursday. Why? It merely set him up for humiliation.
And if we can now carry out 39,000 a day, why are only 18,206 done?
Why are NHS staff forced to travel huge distances to a testing centre, only to be turned away? Why aren’t far, far more being tested if the capacity exists?
On PPE, why announce huge new stocks before they are in hand? Or sit for weeks on solid offers from UK suppliers?
On masks, why claim to be still evaluating the “science” on their effectiveness, when they are already vital in hospitals and care homes and routinely worn abroad?
The Government really just wants to prevent a public stampede when NHS staff need them more.
This crisis is grim enough without people feeling misled by those they are trusting to see us through it.
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