CHESSINGTON

a “relatively small number” of NHS staff were being tested. But she added: “There is capacity, for example, today for almost 3,000 and that will increase as we get to 25,000, that capacity.

“NHS chiefs are identifying that priority and the intention here is to get from thousands to hundreds of thousands within the coming weeks. “The number of tests undertaken in the NHS and Public Health England combined testing capacity is just increasing at the moment.”

Latest figures for Monday show 10,400 tests were carried out on the general public and NHS staff. But only 7,500 people were actually checked as some were carried out on the same person twice due to inconclusive results. Germany is already carrying out seven times more tests than Britain and has pledged to increase it from the 70,000 it does daily.

Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan

Ashworth said: “Germany are testing half a million people a week, yet we still haven’t hit the 10,000 a day the Prime Minister promised. NHS staff are rightly asking if we’ve left it too late to buy the kits and chemicals we need, or whether our lab capacity is too over-stretched after years of tight budgets.”

Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has Covid-19, yesterday lifted a rule limiting NHS staff access to 15% of testing capacity, while 85% were reserved for patients.

The restriction had meant not all the current 12,750 daily capacity was being used. Ministers also blamed a lack of swabs and testing machines for the chaos. Mr Hopson said: “I was talking to a trust this morning that can only test three members of staff a day because that’s the number of swabs they’ve got.”

Cabinet Office minister Mr Gove had on Tuesday blamed the lack of testing on a global shortage of chemical reagents needed to carry them out. But