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Test Results From NHS Or Government Labs Can't Be Linked With Covid-19 App, Officials Admit

Tens of thousands of test results delivered each day by NHS or Public Health England (PHE) labs can’t be linked with the official Covid-19 app, officials have admitted.

An issue with the long-awaited technology – which arrived on Thursday months later than hoped – means that Pillar 1 test results, which are provided by the NHS and PHE, cannot be connected to the app.

On Friday, 210,375 tests were taken – 61,481 of which were handled by PHE and the NHS.

The issue also affects national surveillance testing done as part of the Office for National Statistics’ national surveillance programme, but these tests are not counted in the 61,481 as they cover the whole of the UK as opposed to England.

Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said it is aware of the issue and “urgently working” to resolve it, as critics point out that only tests booked through the government’s commercial partners currently link with the software.

Despite Boris Johnson’s much-ridiculed claims that Test and Trace has “very little or nothing to do with the spread and transmission of the disease”, health secretary Matt Hancock has pushed the app as an “important step forward” in the fight against the virus.

A tweet on the official app account said: “If your test took place in a Public Health England lab or NHS hospital, or as part of national surveillance testing conducted by the Office for National Statistics, test results cannot currently be linked with the app whether they’re positive or negative.”

The tweet came in response to a user who said they had a test and wanted to enter the result in the app but had been asked for a...

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