PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Coronavirus: Screening (27 April 2020)

The National Health Service and Public Health England’s capacity is predominantly comprised of ‘closed’ platforms, which use proprietary reagents, and the demand for proprietary test kits is significantly greater than global supply leading to world-wide shortages in the United Kingdom and other countries. We have addressed these challenges by increasing global allocation from suppliers, increasing use of open platforms and increasing use of low throughput ‘desk top’ polymerase chain reaction (PCR) machines. Through this work we now have test kits for over 100,000 tests a day and are continuing to work with industry and other partners to increase the availability of COVID-19 test kits.