Matt Hancock dodges demand to commit to 100,000 daily coronavirus tests target

Health secretary tells Labour MP who has returned to frontline service as a doctor to 'watch her tone' over call for testing pledge

Health secretary Matt Hancock has dodged a demand from Labour to commit to 100,000 coronavirus tests a day, after numbers fell below the target for three days in succession.

Mr Hancock said he had “confidence” that testing rates would grow and rejected Labour spokeswoman Rosena Allin-Khan’s claim that his testing strategy had been “non-existent", but failed to make the commitment to continued six-figure levels which she called for in the House of Commons.

The health secretary accused Dr Allin-Khan - a hospital doctor who has returned to the NHS frontline during the coronavirus crisis - of taking the wrong "tone" in her attack on his record on testing.

But she hit back later on Twitter, writing: "I will not 'watch my tone' when dozens of NHS and care staff are dying unnecessarily. Families are being torn apart."

The health secretary claimed victory in hitting his deadline to pass the threshold by the end of April, announcing that more than 122,000 tests were recorded last Thursday as drive-through centres and home testing-kits helped send numbers soaring from around 10,000 at the start of the month.

But critics accused him of manipulating the figures after it emerged the total included around 40,000 test kits which had been sent out but not completed by that stage.

And testing numbers have remained below the 100,000 level every day since the 30 April deadline passed, hitting 85,186 in the 24 hours to 4 May.

In the House of Commons today, Labour health spokeswoman Rosena Allin-Khan called for the health secretary to commit himself to restoring and maintaining the 100,000 level.

Dr Allin-Khan told the Commons: “The testing strategy has been non-existent.

“Community testing was scrapped, mass testing was slow to roll out and testing figures are now being manipulated.

“Does the secretary of state commit to a minimum of 100,000 tests each day going forward? And does the secretary of state acknowledge that many frontline workers feel that the government’s lack of testing has cost lives and is responsible for many families being unnecessarily torn apart in grief?”

Mr Hancock, who was in the Commons to answer an urgent question from Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth, accused Dr Allin-Khan of taking the wrong “tone” on the issue.

"I welcome the Honourable Lady to her post as part of the shadow health team," he said. "I think she might do well to take a leaf out of the shadow secretary's book in terms of tone."

“I’m afraid what she said is not true. There’s been a rapid acceleration of testing offer the last few months in this country, including getting to 100,000 tests a day.

“We’ve been entirely transparent on the way that that has been measured throughout, and I have confidence that the rate will continue to rise.

“Currently capacity is 108,000 a day, and we are working to build that higher.

“Of course, we’ve been working very hard to make the testing capacity grow as fast as possible and as more tests are available so we are able to make them available to more people and test people right across the NHS.”

The prime minister's official spokesman later said: "It may be at the moment there is less demand for tests from key workers because the infection rate is stablising or falling. I would hope everyone can agree that that is a good thing. If fewer people are going into hospital with coronavirus symptoms that will mean fewer tests need to be carried out in NHS setting. Likewise, if there's less community transmission, it will mean that key workers potentially need fewer tests. That shouldn't be seen as a bad thing.

"The key point is capacity has been really significantly increased. We can now do more than 100,000 tests a day and as we move forward into the next phase, including the rollout of 'trace, track and test', we have the capacity we need."