Recommendation 185

As a result of the increase in testing capacity driven during April, the UK Government finally resumed community testing on 18 May 2020, following an expansion of capacity, which included more than a doubling of the NHS and PHE laboratory network capacity.274 In its April 2020 testing strategy, the Department of Health and Social Care set out a “five pillar” plan for how covid-19 testing would be scaled up: • Pillar 1: Scaling up NHS swab testing for those with a medical need and, where possible, the most critical key workers; • Pillar 2: Mass-swab testing for critical key workers in the NHS, social care and other sectors; • Pillar 3: Mass-antibody testing to help determine if people have immunity to coronavirus; 270 GOV.UK, ‘Health and Social Care Secretary’s statement on coronavirus: 2 April 2020’, accessed 17 September 2021 271 Oral evidence taken before the Science and Technology Committee on 8 April 2020, HC (2019–21) 136, Q176 272 Q1062 273 Q1264 274 GOV.UK, ‘Everyone in the United Kingdom with symptoms now eligible for coronavirus tests: 18 May 2020’, accessed 17 September 2021 66 Coronavirus: lessons learned to date • Pillar 4: Surveillance testing to learn more about the disease and help develop new tests and treatments; and • Pillar 5: Spearheading a Diagnostics National Effort to build a mass-testing capacity at a completely new scale.275 The capacity for community testing was expanded further primarily under ‘Pillar 2’ of the Government’s testing strategy, through the creation of a series of Lighthouse Lab facilities from early April onwards.276 These “mega-labs” were set up through partnerships between academia, commercial partners, public bodies and not-for-profit organisations, and integrated into a “new national testing infrastructure” and served the entire United Kingdom.