PCR advice to official UK testing centres

The request was successful.

Dear Public Health England,

I have been given information from a number of Hospital Trusts in the UK that they have received advice from you regarding the procedures to use when conducting polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays to detect Covid-19.

Could you please send me a link to the document that you send to Trusts and other testing centres for this specific purpose.

Can you please confirm if any advice you give users indicates the specific cycle (Ct/Cq) values (or range) that they should use?

Are you aware of any other official bodies that send out the information covered above to testing centres?

Yours
Dr F Lally

FOI, Public Health England

OFFICIAL
Dear Dr F Lally

We acknowledge receipt of your email and request for information, which will be treated as a request for information under statutory access legislation.

Please note that requests under the Freedom of Information Act and the Environmental Information Regulations (EIRs) will receive a response within 20 working days from the day following the date of receipt of your request.

If the request is for your personal data, your request has been handled as a data subject access request (SAR) under Article 15 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), then we will respond within one month of the receipt of the request.

Public Health England (PHE) is responsible for providing guidance and advice to government and front-line services for all aspects of public health. It is a designated Category 1 responder organisation under the Civil Contingency Act and this specifically includes the COVID-19 response, providing clinical expertise and wider public health advice and guidance across national and local government, the NHS and third sector. As such, you may experience delays when making statutory information access requests during the pandemic.

We will aim to address all requests promptly and within the required response timeframes. However when we are unable to meet the response timeframe we will keep requesters updated on a revised expected timescale for a response to their request. The Information Commissioner recognises this position in its recent guidance, see link: https://ico.org.uk/global/data-protectio....

FOI Team
Public Accountability Unit
Public Health England
[PHE request email]
www.gov.uk/phe Follow us on Twitter @PHE uk

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FOI, Public Health England

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    3089 FOI Information given to trusts for PCR tests and cycle thresholds.pdf

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OFFICIAL
Dear Frank Lally

Please find attached Public Health England's response to your request.

FOI Team
Public Accountability Unit
Public Health England
[PHE request email]
Tel: 020 8327 6920
www.gov.uk/phe Follow us on Twitter @PHE uk

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