£13.4bn of NHS debt has been written off, says Matt Hancock

During Thursday’s Downing Street press briefing, the Health Secretary Matt Hancock has announced he has written off £13.4bn of historical NHS debt.

The debt wipe off will help the NHS to be in a “stronger position” to fight the coronavirus, for its long-term future.

Hancock also announced he is providing £300m for community pharmacies to fight the frontline.

Compared to other countries, the UK “did not have the biggest diagnostics scale in the world, unlike Germany

“We’ve had to build from a lower base. There’s been a shortage of swabs and reagents.

“The swabs issues has been tackled while reagents are being worked on.”

Hancock said the government are committed to carrying out 100,000 tests every day by the end of April.

He said,  “every single patient who needs a test is going to have one.

“A brand new swab testing capacity is being made available with a private partnership – Boots and Amazon.

“The number of tests will increase this weekend, starting with NHS staff testing so they can return to work knowing they do not have the virus.

More than 5,000 NHS workers have been tested. There are only 5.7% of doctors absent due to COVID-19.”

He further said that, ultra high accuracy antibody test have been developed at Porten Down to ensure they can carry out surveillance.

This will then enable the government to keep track of who has had the virus which will help the country to move forward.

This is Hancock’s first day out of self-isolation since being tested positive for coronavirus last week.

Coronavirus testing kits heading to the UK have been found to be contaminated with the virus, Luxembourg-based manufacturer Eurofins, told UK labs on Monday.

The Telegraph reported that the testing kits have now been delayed due to core parts being contaminated.

The news comes as the British Health Secretary announced on Thursday the have a five point plan in “pressing the accelerator” over coronavirus testing, to reach 100,000 tests a day.

The Department of Health have said on Thursday, “As of 9am 2 April, a total of 163,194 people have been tested of which 33,718 tested positive.”

“As of 5pm on 1 April, of those hospitalised in the UK who tested positive for coronavirus, 2,921 have sadly died.”

This is a rise of 4,244 infected people in 24 hours.

NHS England said, the latest coronavirus patients in England who died,  were aged between 22 and 100-years-old.

With 44 of those people were aged between 25 and 100-years old had no known underlying health conditions.