(According to the Guardian all the home testing bookings had been taken by 6.02 am, two minutes after the website opened, and the drive-in testing appointments ran out before 8.30 am. Nearest test site are Plymouth and Bristol). Owl wonders just how fit for purpose this approach is for those key workers such as hard pressed care home workers. 

Chris Smyth, Whitehall Editor  www.thetimes.co.uk

Matt Hancock’s hopes of hitting his 100,000-a-day testing pledge received a boost yesterday as thousands of people tried to book coronavirus tests online.

Ministers insisted it was a sign of success that the website stopped accepting bookings within hours of opening because testing centres had run out of slots. Hospitals complained, however, that the benchmark distorted priorities by putting a dash for numbers above sensible allocation of tests.

Although slots are meant to be reserved for key workers, officials admit that this is being taken on trust to ensure that laboratory capacity is not wasted. About 16,500 people booked slots yesterday, a revision downward from the government’s original figure of 20,000. Officials are optimistic, however, that the number can be increased, with a further 1,000 slots due to be available today to key workers.

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, told a Downing Street briefing last night that the testing target was “quite likely” to be met now that the website was working. Mr Hancock, the health secretary, is under intense political pressure to meet the self-imposed deadline at the end of the month. Officials judge that it is better to have the service oversubscribed than to have unused testing capacity.

Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer, said that the 100,000 figure had not been based on his advice but acknowledged the need for more testing.

He admitted that contact tracing, which the government is planning to resume at large scale as a way of easing lockdown, might not have stopped in mid-March if testing capacity and manpower had been available.

Professor Whitty told MPs on the science and technology committee that the scale of infections meant there was little alternative to stopping contact tracing on March 13. “Our technical view collectively was it really wasn’t likely to add a huge amount at that particular point, given the resources we had,” he said. “If you did a mental experiment in which we had an infinite amount of testing, infinite numbers of people trained, we might have taken a different view but in any emergency . . . you deal with the tools you’ve got.”

The admission will add to scrutiny of the government’s pandemic planning after it emerged that it was warned last year of the risk of a coronavirus outbreak. A 2019 “national security risk assessment” leaked to The Guardian said that a novel coronavirus similar to Sars and Mers would probably cause “short-term localised disruption”.

Professor Whitty said that increasing testing was “very important” and the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies was estimating the amount of testing needed to ease restrictions.

He said that the plan “includes greater testing within hospitals for people who don’t currently have symptoms, for example people who might be coming in for elective things, and greater testing in care homes. What we’re trying to do is get that basic number and then build on top of that what are the other things we could use it for, under a number of different ways of running the next stage of the epidemic, which is going to be a prolonged one.”

The prime minister’s spokesman said that 5,000 home-testing kits had been ordered within two minutes of the portal going live. Officials acknowledged a brief technical glitch when the site opened but said that it allocated 11,500 slots in drive-through swabbing centres before refusing new bookings. This number is to increase to 12,500 today.

Eligibility yesterday extended to more than ten million key workers and their families but it emerged that no checks were being carried out and people were able to declare themselves as essential staff. The spokesman said: “We expect the public to respond in good faith.”

On Thursday 28,532 tests were carried out despite capacity for more than 51,000. Officials say that demand from NHS staff had been lower than expected. Health and care workers have complained about lengthy trips to one of the 31 drive-through centres. This number is due to increase to 48, in addition to 48 “pop-up” mobile testing centres run by the army. By Thursday, 18,000 home test kits are to be sent out.

Chris Hopson, chief executive of the hospitals group NHS Providers, said: “Much more needs to be done to ensure that people can actually book tests. In our view, it is as important to focus on how testing capacity is delivered and made available as the number of tests completed each day.”

• Personal protective equipment for frontline care workers will run out in days due to delays in setting up an online ordering system, the Local Government Association has warned. It said that councils faced acute shortages with millions of gloves, gowns and visors needed to ensure the safety of carers. They face waiting a month for the government website to be set up.