One THIRD of people taking drive-through coronavirus tests in England now have to wait more than 24 hours for their results as figures reveal the vital swab-testing service is getting SLOWER
Waiting times for coronavirus swab test results have surged in the past week and now one in three people at drive-through centres have to wait more than 24 hours.
Damning statistics today published by the Department of Health show NHS Test and Trace is failing on one of its most important measures – testing people quickly.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson had promised that all tests would be delivered within 24 hours of someone taking a test, but the service has again missed the target.
Between July 9 and July 15, the proportion of people getting their results within a day was 46.8 per cent, down from 50.6 per cent between July 2 and July 8.
The fast turnaround rate plummeted for the regional drive-through centres, where only 68.6 per cent of people got their results within 24 hours, compared to 87.1 per cent a week earlier.
The 24-hour completion rate fell in every other category of testing except home tests, where is has been dismally low since the start. It this week rose slightly to 6.2 per cent from 3.3 per cent.
NHS Test and Trace data shows that the proportion of people getting their results within 24 hours from drive-through test sites and mobile testing units (solid lines) has plummeted in the past week
Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledged that everyone in Britain would get their Covid-19 test results within 24 hours by the end of June.
But he failed to reach that target with test turnaround times at a dismal level week-on-week, and are now getting worse.
The latest data shows across all testing routes, 46.8 per cent of tests are turned around in 24 hours, down on the 50.6 per cent in the week before.
Since the test and trace system launched at the end of May, almost 70 per cent of people who are tested for Covid-19 in Pillar 2 — which is everyone tested outside a hospital — waited more than 24 hours for their result.
It means just 30 per cent are getting their result test back in the target time against the 100 per cent set by the PM.
At regional testing centres — where the majority of tests are undertaken — almost a third (31.4 per cent) of people had to wait more than 24 hours for their result between July 9 and July 15.
The figure is a rise on the week before, when 12.9 per cent waited over 24 hours.
At mobile testing units, a quarter of tests took more than a day to turnaround, an increase on the 12.2 per cent the week before.
The number of people who got their test result within 24 hours halved at satellite test centres, which are pop-up sites in places like car parks where cases are high.
Just 9.8 per cent of people in England who were tested at one of these sites had their result in 24 hours in the week up until July 15 compared with 20.8 per cent the week before.