Army trucks will ferry mobile coronavirus testing units nationwide to screen NHS and care workers
TRUCKS will ferry mobile testing units nationwide to screen NHS and care workers after thousands could not get to drive-through centres.
A military-backed initiative will see lorries take teams to hospitals and care homes in towns and cities to take swab samples in a bid to hit the 100,000 tests a day target this month.
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General Sir Nick Carter, chief of the defence staff, said: “We think the innovative idea of pop-ups, rather like mobile libraries, would be a very useful way of going.”
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has blamed a lack of demand for tests going unused.
The UK has capacity for more than 40,000 a day but conducted just 22,814 yesterday.
Many staff said drive-through centres were too far from their homes and others said they were denied tests.
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The British Medical Association said every town should have a test centre.
Prof Dame Parveen Kumar, from the BMA, said: “The Government says there has been a lack of demand for staff testing, but this is completely opposite to what doctors across the country are telling us on a daily basis.
“We need to see better coordination of testing and far greater availability if we want to see any real chance of confidently and safely returning thousands of staff back to front line care.”
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