NHS introduces drive-through coronavirus tests

The NHS is introducing drive-through coronavirus tests where people are checked for the disease from the comfort of their car, as part of efforts to ease pressure on hospitals.

The method is being rolled out alongside home testing, where NHS staff, including nurses and paramedics, will visit people in their own homes. 

It comes as dozens of evacuees from coronavirus-stricken cruise ship the Diamond Princess begin their two-week quarantine in the UK. 

The new ‘drive thru’ scheme will be launched in central London and involves those getting tested for the virus to drive to designated health centre car parks, where nurses in full Hazmat suits will be able to swab people through the car window. 

The Central London Community Healthcare NHS trust will launch the scheme from Monday. If successful, it will be rolled out more widely across the UK. 

Only patients referred by NHS 111 will be sent to the drive thru service, with potential patients thought to be seriously ill excluded, the Telegraph reports. 

Security outside the buildings at Arrowe Park Hospital, where passengers that have been repatriated to the UK from a cruise ship hit by the coronavirus in Yokohama, Japan, will be quarantined for 14 days to protect against the spread of the illness

Staff in high-visibility jackets at the facility at Arrowe Park Hospital on Merseyside

The initiative was formed following concerns that hospitals could become overwhelmed by the number of people getting tested for the disease. 

The NHS has carried out 6,152 tests of the coronavirus. Meanwhile the number of confirmed cases in the UK sits at nine.  

Meanwhile evacuees from the Diamond Princess cruise ship begin their two-week quarantine in the UK and are settling in at an accommodation block at Arrowe Park hospital on the Wirral – their home for the next 14 days.

The group – reportedly made up of 30 Britons and two Irish nationals – will undergo regular health checks while in quarantine. 

Meanwhile, a group who have spent the past two weeks holed up in a centre in Milton Keynes are due to be allowed home on Sunday.

British Diamond Princess evacuees arrive at Boscombe Down airfield on a repatriation flight from Tokyo on February 22

Around 150 people, who arrived in the UK on February 9 on an evacuation flight from the virus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan, have been staying at the Kents Hill Park training and conference centre.

They too will have been regularly tested and as of Saturday afternoon the Department of Health said no new cases of coronavirus had been detected in the UK.

All of those who arrived at Arrowe Park tested negative to having Covid-19 before flying back to the UK on a repatriation flight.

The four Britons on board the Diamond Princess who have recently tested positive for coronavirus were not on the flight.

More than 78,000 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed across the world, the majority of which are in China.

World Health Organisation statistics on Saturday showed there had been more than 2,400 deaths in China and 11 elsewhere.