NHS workers queue in cars to get into Ikea for coronavirus tests

A Covid-19 test centre has opened in the cark park of the company's Wembley store today.

NHS staff were seen queuing in their cars to be tested for coronavirus at a makeshift swabbing site outside Ikea.

The Covid-19 test centre has opened up in the car park of the Swedish furniture company’s Wembley store in north-west London today.

Healthcare staff have been asked to attend to be tested for Covid-19 as pressure mounts on the government to ramp up the number of people in the UK getting tested for the virus.

It is hoped that if NHS staff who are currently self-isolating can be tested, and test negative, they will be able to return to work on the frontline quicker.

The government has faced criticism for being too slow to roll out tests, after promising to conduct 25,000 per day last week. Currently only around 8,000 tests for Covid-19 are being taken each day while Germany is managing to test 500,000 people every week.

This morning housing secretary Robert Jenrick said it is hoped that 15,000 people per day will be tested by the end of the week, while the UK will hit its 25,000 per day target by mid-April.

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The Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Nursing and the British Medical Association all say testing of frontline staff is desperately needed.

Critics have also warned that mass community testing is the only safe way of lifting the lockdown without risking a fresh outbreak of the virus, but Public Health England (PHE) has repeatedly said that testing people in the community with mild symptoms is not necessary.

Pictures today revealed a separate drive-through site at Chessington World of Adventures stood empty this week despite the urgent need to increase testing.

Rows of empty testing stations were spotted alongside bored staff stretching and lunging while they wait for cars to arrive.

More than 9,000 people who have tested positive for coronavirus are currently being treated in UK hospitals and officials said they only expect that figure to grow.

Cabinet minister Michael Gove said at Tuesday’s Downing Street press conference the UK must go ‘further, faster’ to ramp up coronavirus testing capacity.

But Mr Gove said a ‘critical constraint’ on the ability to rapidly increase testing capacity in the UK is the availability of chemical reagents.

A Government spokesman later clarified that ‘reagents’ refers to components of test kits which are manufactured for specific lab machines and which can not be made ‘by just any company’.

‘There is a global shortage of components specific to testing kits used by the NHS and others around the world,’ the spokesman said.

‘The Prime Minister and the Health Secretary are working with companies worldwide to ensure that we get the material we need to increase tests of all kinds.’

But the Chemical Industries Association insisted reagents ‘are being manufactured and delivered to the NHS’.

A spokesperson said: ‘Every business here in the UK and globally is looking at what they can do to help meet the demand as a matter of urgency.’

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