Definition of a processed test (technical duplicates/triplicates)

The request was successful.

Dear Department of Health and Social Care,

Please could you tell me what the definition of a "processed test" under Pillars 1 and 2 of the testing programme is.

For context, I am surprised to see that the number of tests appears to be 2 or 3 times greater than the number of people tested. I am aware that there will sometimes be clinical reasons for people to be tested more than once, but the that the average person might need to be tested more than once seems surprising.

Please could you confirm that if PCR reactions are conducted in duplicate or triplicate for technical reasons, these are not counted as 2 or 3 separate tests. Another way of phrasing this is to ask you to confirm that each time a person is swabbed, this counts as only one test. If you are unable to confirm that, please explain how units of testing are defined.

Yours faithfully,

T Sanderson

Department of Health and Social Care

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Department of Health and Social Care

1 Attachment

Dear Mr/Ms Sanderson,

Please find attached the Department of Health and Social Care's response
to your recent FOI request (our ref: FOI-1255240). 

Yours sincerely,

 Le-anne Frankson 

Freedom of Information Team
Department of Health and Social Care

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