Chesterfield MP issues statement after being 'inundated' by people unable to get Covid-19 test

Toby Perkins has issued a statement after being ‘inundated’ with requests from people anxious because they have been unable to get a test either at the local testing centre in Chesterfield or nearby.

The Labour MP says that locally ‘we have greater capacity for testing than there is laboratory capacity for’.

"The national labs that the Government set up can’t cope with the number of tests and the health secretary says that we should expect more laboratory capacity online in the next two to four weeks.

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"The national labs are prioritising areas with higher incidence of Covid over areas like Derbyshire which further restricts the number of tests we are able to get.

"That is why people will sometimes find they can’t get a local test but drive past the Proact and find there is no-one being tested there.”

Mr Perkins added: “I had to fight to get a local testing centre in the first place and now I have to fight again to ensure we get our fair share of laboratory spots, this is so far away from the ‘world-class system’ we were promised.”

He also urged people without symptoms to not get a test until capacity can cope.

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“It is not good enough that the systems weren’t put in place before now to meet the inevitable demand,” he said.

"I appreciate the demand is unprecedented and that new testing centres are being set up and staff are working flat out to turn the results around.

"However, this demand is not unexpected and we have been calling for the Government to get control of this for months.”

The Derbyshire Times asked the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) this week if they were keeping up with demand at the Technique Stadium testing site.

However, a DHSC spokesperson said: “It is difficult for us to get specific information for individual testing sites due to the sheer volume of press requests we get at the moment.”

They went on to say: “NHS Test and Trace is working, our capacity is the highest it has ever been and our laboratories are processing more than a million tests a week.”

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