Online registrations close and home kits run out at start of drive to test more key workers

This article is more than 4 months old

This article is more than 4 months old

The government has apologised after Matt Hancock’s attempt to test essential workers for coronavirus ran into problems within hours of its launch.

The health secretary had promised that from 6am on Friday morning up to 10 million essential workers and their families would be able to apply for a drive-in test or home-testing kit.

Quick guide Official list of key workers in England Show Hide The UK government has expanded the criteria for who qualifies for a free test for coronavirus to all essential workers and their families in England – up to 10 million people. The list of essential workers is the same as the one used to allow the children of key workers to carry on going to school during the lockdown: Health and social care

Frontline health and social care staff such as doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, as well as support and specialist staff in the health and social care sector. In addition it includes those working in supply chains including producers and distributors of medicines and personal protective equipment. Education and childcare

Nursery, teaching staff and social workers. Key public services

Those required to run the justice system, religious staff, as well as those responsible for managing the deceased, and journalists providing public service broadcasting. Local and national government

Administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of the Covid-19 response or delivering essential public services. Food and other necessary goods

Those involved in the production, processing, distribution, sale and delivery of food. Public safety and national security

Police, support staff, Ministry of Defence civilian staff and armed forces personnel, fire and rescue staff, and those responsible for border security, prisons and probation. Transport

Those who will keep air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating. Utilities, communication and financial services

Staff required to keep oil, gas, electricity, water and sewerage operations running. Staff in the civil nuclear, chemical and telecommunications sectors. Those in postal services and those working to provide essential financial services.

But within three hours of the site launching, anyone accessing the self-referral test site was told that applications had closed.

A message said: “You can’t currently register for a Covid-19 test. Please check back here later.”

The Department for Health and Social Care blamed the problems on “significant demand”. In a tweet it apologised for the inconvenience and promised more tests would be available on Saturday.

Department of Health and Social Care (@DHSCgovuk) There has been significant demand for booking tests today.



We apologise for any inconvenience.



We are continuing to rapidly increase availability. More tests will be available tomorrow.

The Labour MP Toby Perkins, the shadow minister for apprenticeships, was among many who received the message about closed applications.

Toby Perkins (@tobyperkinsmp) When I click on the link, it says Coronavirus test- applications closed. Is there a link that works that I can share @grantshapps ?

And those who did get through earlier were told that Friday’s allocation of home test kits had already been issued.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Message on the government’s website about the availability of home test kits. Photograph: Screengrab

The problems took the gloss off Hancock’s launch of the self-referral system, which he said was “critical” to ramping up testing.

Speaking on BBC Radio’s Today programme before the problems emerged he said: “If you have symptoms or somebody else in your household has symptoms, then you can go online to Gov.uk and self-refer for a test – that’s a new system up and running this morning.”

Share your experiences of expanded coronavirus testing in the UK Read more

He said until now there had not been enough people coming forward for tests despite the increase in capacity. He said: “It’s a good problem to have, because it means that we can then expand the amount of those who are eligible and critically we’ve been able to bring in this new online booking system that opened, six o’clock this morning, so that if you’re an essential worker, you can just book yourself instead of going through what was a quite a complicated route through your employer.”

He added: “It was always part of the plan to bring in this new booking system. We only finished writing the code yesterday. So it’s been an unbelievable effort by the technical people to build this new system … The reason that the increase was pretty slow at the start of the month was because we’ve been building these systems to automate the testing, automate the labs and the IT systems that are needed. So we’re ahead of the plan, but you know, many a slip between cup and lip.”

Asked whether he thought the government would meet the target of 100,000 tests a day by next Thursday, Hancock said: “I do, yes, but nothing’s guaranteed in life.”