Written questions, answers and statements

Public Health Laboratory Service: Coronavirus

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Question for Department of Health and Social Care

UIN 32076, tabled on 19 March 2020

Question

Meg Hillier
Labour
Hackney South and Shoreditch
Commons

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what function public health laboratories have in covid-19 testing.

This answer is the replacement for a previous holding answer.

Answer

Ms Nadine Dorries
Conservative
Mid Bedfordshire
Commons

Answered on

21 April 2020

Public health laboratories are providing diagnostic testing to the National Health Service, supporting community-based surveillance programmes, undertaking testing to support outbreaks in critical settings such as prisons and care homes and providing a testing referral service to NHS laboratories testing for COVID-19 for difficult or unclear results.

Answered by

Department of Health and Social Care
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