Elmore hears back from Government about availability of lateral flow home test kits

Lateral flow home test kits became unavailable online on 13 December 2021 as extremely high demand overwhelmed the government’s website. It said on Monday that there were “no more home tests available” and advised people to “try again later” or to book a test site appointment instead.

Elmore’s frontline caseworkers rely on lateral flow home test kits to keep safe themselves, colleagues, loved ones, and, crucially, the people they support. Elmore was concerned to learn that lateral flow tests were no longer available for order on the government’s website in England during the significant rise in Omicron infections in the UK. While its frontline workers try to pick up a kit from pharmacies and other providers, they routinely experience shortages which the unavailability of kits for order compounded.

Keen to know when kits would become available again and why there was a shortage in the first place, Elmore wrote to the Government through Anneliese Dodds, the Member of Parliament for Oxford East constituency, to raise concerns on 13 December 2021. The charity pressed the government to urgently resolve the shortage on behalf of its caseworkers and clients.

Maggie Throup MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Vaccines and Public Health, responded on behalf of the Government on 18 January 2022 to explain that there is no longer a shortage. While this is true of the government’s website, this is not the situation in relation to pharmacies.

The letter to the Government about the unavailability of lateral flow home test kits can be read here.

The response from Maggie Throup MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Vaccines and Public Health, can be read here.