Care minister claims it is ‘easy’ for key workers to obtain Covid tests

Essential workers who are not included in the new daily lateral flow testing scheme can “very easily” access tests, care minister Gillian Keegan has said this morning.

“It’s fire, police, emergency services, I think Border Force, testing lab staff, they’re quite critical at the moment – and some elements of transport. But not everybody in transport would be considered critical, and would need to have this daily test delivered to them every day,” she told Sky News’ Breakfast programme.

The MP for Chichester said: “They can get tests very easily, actually. The main channel for most people is to get tests via the main channels, either booking to get something sent to your home or pharmacies.”

She said that while there had been a “couple of surges in demand” there had been work over Christmas to ensure capacity was tripled by 1 March.

She admitted that “some people are waiting too long” for Covid results, but denied it was “typical” for people to wait a week for a PCR result.

She went on to say that she had demanded an investigation into reports that North East Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust has advised people to ring a taxi if they needed to travel to A&E.

“That is not what we have put in place at all… We have more ambulance crews in operation than we have ever had, we also gave £55 million extra just for this period to cover staff and make sure we had increases in staff and staffing levels.

“I’ve actually asked NHS England to look at that particular case because that doesn’t sound to me like that’s an acceptable approach – people should be able to get an ambulance if they have a heart attack and that’s why we’ve put that extra funding in place.”