Team Lopez – Julia Lopez MP has received the attached letter from the Minister for Innovation, Lord Bethell, who has confirmed that the Department for Health and Social Care is opening a Regional Test Site (RTS) in our neighbouring constituency of Dagenham and Rainham at Selinas Lane (RM8 1QH).
The site is a drive-through site and will offer both assisted and self-administered tests. The Department has engaged with local government and public health stakeholders to narrow down the location and identify a suitable site for Dagenham and Rainham and the surrounding areas.
This site is part of a network of RTS across the UK and is in addition to home tests which can be booked through the government’s online portal. Mobile Testing Units are also travelling the UK, responding to increased regional demand for testing, and supporting hard to reach areas and Ministers are expanding the network of ‘walk-through’ Local Test Sites which are easily accessible by foot or by bicycle.
This expansion of testing supports the existing NHS and Public Health England (PHE) infrastructure, which has greatly increased its testing capacity since the coronavirus pandemic began, supporting our commitment to expand local direction of national testing resources and move to a more locally owned and delivered testing model.
Across the UK, testing capacity has been expanded to more than 700,000 tests a day. Anyone experiencing a high temperature, a new, continuous cough, or a loss or change to sense of smell or taste, should book a test at nhs.uk/coronavirus, by calling 119, or using the NHS Covid-19 app.
In England, anyone testing positive for the virus will be contacted by NHS Test and Trace to help them track their contacts. This will help people to identify who they may have been in close contact with, protecting others from further transmission.
