Recommendation 199

Overall, the National Audit Office concluded that NHS Test and Trace “did not plan for a sharp rise in testing demand in early Autumn [2020]” and was therefore “unprepared.”311 Professor Chris Whitty reiterated to both Committees in December 2020 that one key learning was the need to scale up testing capacity, stating that the UK had been “caught out twice now with lack of testing, and three times would be too many”.312 By January 2021 testing capacity had reportedly increased to 800,000 per day and Baroness Harding expressed that she was “very confident” that there was sufficient capacity to handle future potential surges—citing the increased demand over Christmas as an example.313