Mass Covid testing to be rolled out across local authorities including Calderdale, Doncaster, East Yorkshire, Hull and Wakefield

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said today that mass coronavirus testing will be rolled out across 66 local authorities.

Yorkshire authorities Calderdale, Doncaster, East Yorkshire, Hull and Wakefield will be amongst the 66 who will receive the testing after expressing an initial interest.

The lateral flow tests have a turnaround time of under an hour and are for people who live and work in the areas and do not have symptoms.

The tests have been available since Friday November 6 in Liverpool.

Matt Hancock said he had written to every director of public health in England on Monday November 9 offering to make the tests available and he is expecting more to sign up.

Leeds will not be taking part in the initial new mass testing roll out.

Prior to the testing being rolled out in Liverpool, Leeds Council said last week that it was waiting to see how effective national pilots are to answer some of its concerns before making a decision on whether Leeds will volunteer to take part in the pilot.

Leeds Council’s concerns included the implications of false positive and false negative results, the impact on workforce capacity, how tests will be administrated and link with Test and Trace and the capacity to effectively contact trace positive tests.

Other areas that will initially follow the Liverpool mass testing pilot include Nottinghamshire, Manchester and the West Midlands.

Bradford is also not part of the announcement.

Sarah Muckle, Director of Public Health for Bradford Council, said:

“We have expressed an interest in taking part, but we are not among the initial 66 Local Authorities announced today. But our understanding is that all local authorities will be sent these tests weekly.

“Every Local Authority will be given a number of these new lateral flow tests each week meaning it will take some time to cover the entire district’s population. We are the fourth largest metropolitan district council in the country.

“We are now working to put in place a new delivery programme for when the new tests are made available to us.”

Speaking to Sky News on Tuesday Matt Hancock said: “I can confirm that we are rolling out the sort of mass testing we are seeing in Liverpool, and indeed we earlier piloted in Stoke-on-Trent, across 66 local authorities.

“Last night I wrote to the directors of public health of all local authorities in England saying we can make available these brilliant new lateral flow tests that give results in 15 minutes, and we can make them available to directors of public health right across the country.

“Sixty-six expressed an interest in the first instance, I’m now expecting a whole load more.”

Mr Hancock also said that mass testing, like a vaccine rollout, would be across the UK not just England.

He added: “The UK Government has bought the vaccine for the whole of the UK and it will be rolled out fairly across the whole of the UK with the same prioritisation no matter where you live in this country.

“The same goes for mass testing, making sure we roll that out across the whole UK.”

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Mr Hancock said the “much more versatile” lateral flow tests would be rolled out in Nottinghamshire as well as “across Yorkshire, the West Midlands, other parts of the North West and the whole of the North East and other parts”.

On Friday, queues built up outside the new test centres which opened at midday, with people waiting around 45 minutes outside the Liverpool Tennis Centre – one of the six facilities – before it opened.

Liverpool’s director of public health, Matt Ashton, on Saturday said the mass testing was showing positive signs after thousands of people were tested on the first day of the pilot scheme.

The programme aims to test up to 50,000 people a day once fully operational, he added.

The city’s mayor, Joe Anderson, on Monday said 23,170 people have been tested for coronavirus in the city since midday on Friday, with 0.7% testing positive.