Testing, testing

People are rightly concerned to see an increase in the number of tests carried out.

One of the people involved said today that the delays in getting the number of tests up has been intensely frustrating for everyone involved.

We need to step up the number of tests, and therefore is has been announced today that the government is:
  • Publishing a new five-point strategy to significantly increase the number of tests being carried out, with a goal of 100,000 tests a day by the end of the month. We are expanding testing to critical NHS staff and their families, to help ensure they can stay in work if they test negative. We plan to expand testing to all NHS staff, and critical key workers, then to all key workers, and then to the whole population.

To make sure that local NHS bodies can concentrate on fixing the pandemic and don't have to focus on balancing the books until this is over:
  • Writing off over £13 billion of debt for NHS providers, freeing them up to investing in maintaining vital services. The changes will provide much needed financial support during this unprecedented viral pandemic, as well as laying secure foundations for the longer-term commitments set out last year to support the NHS to become more financially sustainable.
Under normal circumstances I would never write one of two of the things above: I still believe that there is no magic money tree and you cannot go on indefinitely spending as though you have one.

But these are not normal circumstances.

A country the size of Britain can afford to forget about the budget for a few months while we concentrate, first on saving lives, and secondly on making sure that there is still an economy to save when things start getting back to normal after the pandemic.

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