No tests available in Bolton or ANY of the 10 Covid-19 hotspots in England

No walk-in, drive-in or postal coronavirus tests are available for people with symptoms of the disease in England’s 10 outbreak hotspots, it was claimed today.

Swabs are not available in Bolton, which is fighting the largest outbreak of the virus in the country with an infection rate of 122 cases for every 100,000 people.

The Government website where testing slots are booked also shows there are no tests available in Salford, Bradford, Blackburn, Oldham, Preston, Pendle, Rochdale, Tameside and Manchester, according to LBC radio. 

When postcodes in each area are put into the testing system it allegedly comes up with the message: ‘This service is currently very busy. More tests should be available later.’

It comes as Nicola Sturgeon today accused the UK government of trying to limit the number of slots available for testing in Scottish mobile and regional test centres.

She said the Health Secretary had made the request after telling her a ‘demand issue’ had led to a reduction in test availability.

In a humiliating performance for the government the testing shortage has come just days after Downing Street committed to ‘Operation Moonshot’, an ambitious plan to one day carry out 10million tests a day to track the virus in real time.

But the current system seems inexplicably unable now to carry out even the approximately 150,000 swabs for which it is responsible.

The testing chief of NHS Test & Trace last week issued a public apology on Twitter and said lab capacity was to blame for slow turnaround times and people being unable to order swabs.

LBC’s Westminster correspondent Ben Kentish said that when they tried to get tests in any of the ten areas, they were not offered one.

‘The government testing website simply says the service is very busy and people should come back in a few hours,’ he said. 

‘We tried to get a test in the top ten areas. In all ten they were unable to get any sort of tests in any of the ten areas.’

Coronavirus test appointments are uploaded on the Government’s testing portal throughout the day, meaning those looking to book a test are advised to check back regularly.

Once each test is booked the site shows there are none available in the area at present. 

All the ten areas that currently do not have tests available are listed by Public Health England as the areas of England with the biggest coronavirus outbreaks.

Their latest report placed Bolton at the top of the list, followed by Bradford with 72 cases per 100,000, Oldham with 66 cases per 100,000 and Salford with 62 cases per 100,000.

Bolton has been placed under strengthened lockdown restrictions following a surge in cases, and last week became the first place in England to be forced to move pubs back to a takeaway only service.

Other measures imposed include a limit on opening hours, with venues required to close from 10pm to 5am, and a law stating people cannot socialise outside of their household.

A further 96 cases of people with coronavirus were confirmed yesterday in Bolton, bringing its cumulative total to 3,239.

A spokesman for Bolton council said they are aware the Government is planning to open three new walk-in and drive-in test centres in their area so that more appointments will be available.

Matt Hancock last week accused people of trying to get a coronavirus test when they didn’t have symptoms of the virus, alleging they had seen a 25 per cent surge in demand for these cases.

Guidance makes clear the tests are only for those who have symptoms, or who have been asked to get a test by authorities.

Mr Hancock appealed for only those with symptoms to get a test, in response to a backlog caused by ‘lab issues’. 

It is thought problems with processing tests in labs are leading to a backlog of samples waiting to be tested. 

The UK’s director of testing, Sarah-Jane Marsh, said on Twitter last week that the Government’s ability to process samples was at a ‘critical pinch-point’.

‘Can I please offer my heartfelt apologies to anyone who cannot get a Covid test at present,’ she wrote. ‘All of our testing sites have capacity, which is why they don’t look overcrowded, it’s our laboratory processing that is the critical pinch-point.’

She added: ‘We are doing all we can to expand quickly.’

Ms Sturgeon has accused the UK government of trying to limit the number of tests available in Scotland while speaking at the Scottish Government’s coronavirus briefing. 

‘We were concerned over the weekend that one of the ways the UK Government was trying to deal with the backlog was to restrict access to testing, and the Health Secretary managed to avoid that happening in Scotland,’ she said.

She also expressed ‘serious concern’ about the testing backlog and urged Mr Hancock to share the ‘full scale and nature of issues they are facing’ so her Government could help to try and fix the problem.  

She continued: ‘There was a proposal over the weekend that the available slots at mobile testing units and regional testing centres in Scotland would be reduced and the Health Secretary managed to avoid that happening so that we retained full capacity for Scotland.

‘We have no indication at the moment that there is any significant issue in Scotland with people accessing testing slots.

‘The issue that we do appear to be suffering some impacts from – and again it’s a UK-wide issue – is a backlog in tests being processed that is then leading to a longer turnaround time.’

Scotland’s Health Secretary, Jeane Freeman, said she had ‘constructive conversations’ with Mr Hancock and her Welsh counterpart Vaughan Gething about the backlog, which she said was caused by rising demand and an ‘issue with the speed and capacity of processing the tests’. 

She added: ‘I was pleased that we managed not to have the restrictions on access to testing slots that were originally being proposed, but this is work that we need to continue because we need to try as best we can to work cooperatively and to resolve this situation.’

The Government’s data shows that growth in testing capacity has largely stalled since mid-July, when around 350,000 tests were processed every day.

On September 10, the latest day for which data is available, show 374,000 tests were processed by labs across the country.

It comes as the UK records a sudden surge in coronavirus cases, with daily reported cases remaining above 2,000 for more than a week.

A further 2, 621 cases of coronavirus were recorded today in the UK amid mounting fears of a second wave.

Government statistics now show some 2,998 infections are being recorded each day, on average. For comparison, more than 3,300 cases were confirmed on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Top experts insist the UK doesn’t yet need to panic over the rising numbers because they are only a fraction of the 100,000-plus that occurred each day during the darkest period of the crisis. Other scientists, however, say action is needed to prevent Britain being hit by another wave.

Another nine deaths from coronavirus were also recorded, taking the official number of coronavirus victims to 41,637.

The UK’s Department of Health has been contacted for comment.