Recommendation 23

Both the Department and NHST&T signalled the opportunity to generate a long- term legacy from the vast public investment in, and expansion of, diagnostic capacity.80 However, they have not yet articulated how this is going to happen: NHST&T told us it was still working through how laboratory infrastructure should “evolve in a post-COVID world”. It explained, “there is not a single model” for the laboratories it has set up, which range from entirely private facilities to partnerships between the NHS and private or university laboratories.81 We challenged NHST&T specifically on whether large testing centres were the best way forward in terms of an NHS legacy compared with having more capacity within local hospitals. Its view was that a combination of public and private approaches was preferable, given the different types of testing each undertakes.82 78 Q 111 79 https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/contact-tracing-in-the-context-of-covid-19 80 Qq 44, 111 81 Q 113 82 Qq 41–44,126 18 COVID-19: Test, track and trace (part 1)