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The number of daily coronavirus tests completed in the UK has fallen below April’s target of 100,000, with just 76,496 tests completed on Saturday.
The number is a significant drop from figures reported on Saturday, and more than 40,000 lower than those announced by health secretary Matt Hancock on Friday.
The validity of Friday’s figures was questioned after the HSJ reported that the government had changed how it counted the numbers as it moved to ensure the health secretary’s pledge was kept.
The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) is said to have started including in its figures tests which were delivered to people’s homes but had yet to be returned to laboratories with a sample.
Justin Madders, Labour’s shadow health minister, said Hancock must “urgently clarify” the process.
“We want the government’s test, isolate and trace strategy to succeed and welcomed expanding who was eligible to get a test, but counting a test put in the post is not the same as a conducted test and getting results,” he said.
At Sunday’s No.10 press briefing, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove, said more than 200,000 key workers and their families had been tested for coronavirus.
He said criteria for testing had been extended beyond key workers to anyone over 65 displaying symptoms and anyone who has to travel to get to work.
Gove said that this week the Government will be piloting new “test, track and trace procedures” on the Isle of Wight, with a view to having them in place more widely later this month.
The latest figures also revealed the north west of England now has more people in hospital with coronavirus than London, the first time the capital has not had the most cases in the UK.