Register home test: How to get a home testing kit for COVID-19

“You can help by only booking a test if you have a fever, a new continuous cough, or you’ve lost your sense of taste or smell – if you don’t have those symptoms and haven’t been asked to book a test, please don’t.”

Earlier in September the director of the Government’s Test and Trace programme in England issued an apology over the recent shortage of tests.

In a tweet, Sarah-Jane Marsh explained it was the laboratories, not the testing sites themselves, that were the “critical pinch-point”.

She said the programme was doing all it can to “expand quickly.”