Patient told to drive 340 miles for test despite minister’s pledge

NO ONE should have to drive more than 75 miles for a Covid test, ministers have said, despite reports that patients have been told their nearest site is six hours away.

Describing the journey as “quite a hike”, Matt Hancock yesterday acknowledged that some people with suspected Covid-19 have been asked to travel 75 miles, but promised that was the limit.

However, it later emerged that a patient in Nottingham was instructed to travel to Dundee, 340 miles away, which would take six hours.

It follows increasing reports that patients have been unable to secure appointments at their local drive-in centres, in addition to reported shortages of home-testing kits.

Last week Baroness Harding, who is in charge of the NHS Test and Trace programme, apologised for the inability of labs to keep up with demand.

Speaking on LBC yesterday, Mr Hancock said: “Over the summer we have seen demand for tests go up and so if your local centre is full then people were asked to go a long way.

“The vast majority of people get access to a test at their local testing centre and it is turned around very rapidly.

“But there have been problems and we are increasing capacity.

“There have been operational problems and operational issues. We have been completely upfront about the challenges that the country faces, but all I can do is just keep driving capacity of the system higher and higher,” the Health Secretary added.

In April, as officials scrambled to roll out wider testing capacity, Mr Hancock promised that no one would have to drive for more than 45 minutes to get a test.