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All care home residents and staff will get a coronavirus test regardless of whether they have symptoms, Matt Hancock has said.
Covid-19 checks will also be rolled out to all those aged 65 and over with symptoms, and to their households.
Speaking at the Downing Street briefing on Tuesday, the health secretary also said all workers who have to leave home to do their jobs, and their households, would be eligible for testing from Wednesday.
He said: “From construction workers to emergency plumbers, from research scientists to those in manufacturing, the expansion of access to testing will protect the most vulnerable and help keep people safe.
“It’s possible because we’ve expanded capacity for testing thus far.”
It comes as the government stretches to reach its 100,000-a-day test target by the end of April.
He added: “Building on successful pilots, we will be rolling out testing of asymptomatic residents and staff in care homes in England, and to patients and staff in the NHS.
“This will mean that anyone who is working or living in a care home will be able to get access to a test – whether they have symptoms or not.
“I am determined to do everything I can to protect the most vulnerable.”
Hancock also said the government would begin releasing daily death figures for people in care homes and in the community who have died with the disease, as well as those in hospitals.
Adding it was an effort to “bring as much transparency as possible” to the statistics, he said: “From tomorrow we will be publishing not just the number of deaths in hospital each day, but the number of deaths in care homes and the community too.
“This will supplement the ONS [Office for National Statistics] and CQC [Care Quality Commission] weekly publication and all add to our understanding of how this virus is spreading day by day, and it will help inform the judgments that we make as we work to keep people safe.”
On Tuesday, the number of people who died from coronavirus climbed by 659.
Hancock also said the government was on track to meet the goal of 100,000 tests a day and now had the capacity to carry out more than 70,000 tests a day.
He said the dispatch of home test kits would be expanded to 25,000 a day by the end of the week while mobile testing units manned by the army will total more than 70 by the end of the week.
“All of this has led to an increase in daily testing capacity, which now stands at 73,400,” he said. “This has allowed us progressively to expand access to testing.”
Asked whether care homes were now the government’s priority in dealing with coronavirus, Hancock said: “Of course care homes have been a top priority right from the start.
“We’ve strengthened the rules around what happens in care homes and tightened infection control, also making testing available throughout the care centre I think is incredibly important as we’ve ramped up the availability of testing.
“We keep a close eye on it and I’m very glad we are now able to publish this daily data that will keep the focus on what is happening in care homes.”