Private firms cash in on family holidays with £300 Covid tests
PRIVATE Covid testing firms have been accused of profiteering with charges that can add up to £1,000 to the cost of a summer holiday for a family of four.
The firms are charging up to £300 for a single PCR test, despite the chemical processing costing little more than £20, an investigation by The Daily Telegraph has found.
The cheapest companies on the official list of government-approved firms are asking as little as £60 for providing PCR test results within a day. But the most expensive companies are four times that price and five times for a rapid turnaround for results out of normal office hours at the weekend.
It is the difference between adding £1,000 to a family of four’s summer holiday abroad and a more affordable charge of £240.
Every holidaymaker returning to the UK from May 17 will have to pay for a PCR test on or before the second day of arrival even when travelling back from a “green list” country. People coming from amber or red list countries will have to take two, on days two and eight.
Cignpost Diagnostics, a governmentapproved testing firm, is among the cheapest, charging just £60 for a PCR test at Gatwick and £80 at Heathrow, Birmingham and Edinburgh airports.
Unlike most other companies, it has its own mobile laboratories and techni- cal staff, which means it does not have the same bureaucracy and can cut costs while still making a “modest” profit.
Nick Markham, co-founder of the company with a Scottish immunology professor, Denis Kinane, said his business model had cut out the “middle man”, and he believed some companies were profiteering.
“If we can do it for £60 and £80, you get an idea of the sorts of margins that other people are charging. PCR doesn’t have to be expensive.
It follows plans by Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, to drive down the cost of PCR tests. Firms are on average charging twice the price of the cheapest, at around £130 a test, according to an analysis of 70 government-approved companies by The Telegraph.
PCR tests in the UK cost about £128 on average, double the average of £62 across eight European destinations.
One of the most expensive tests seen by the Telegraph was offered by the London-based 107 Harley Street clinic, which charges £225 for a weekday test or £300 for a weekend appointment.
Professor Kaveh Shakib, the clinic’s director, denied the company was profiteering, saying the service was aimed at a “VIP” clientele, “99 per cent of whom didn’t [inquire] about the price”.
He said: “In our clinic the test is done by doctors or very senior band-nine nurses and we return the result within four to six hours. We provide a personal service and nobody has to use it.”