Facts

Matt Hancock, at a Coronavirus press briefing [BBC] [YouTube], said that the government has “hit each of the goals we set on testing.”

On 18 March the Department of Health and Social Care published a document saying “the government will increase the number of people tested for COVID-19 to 25,000 hospital patients a day.”

It added that “the increased capacity is expected to be ready within 4 weeks.”

By 15 April, four weeks after the target was set, according to FullFact only 18,665 tests were performed, with 13,839 people tested.

Verdict

Matt Hancock’s claim that the government hit each of its targets on testing was misleading.

When we asked Matt Hancock to respond to the claims laid out in this website, a spokesperson said: “This list is false, wildly inaccurate, and in some cases possibly even defamatory. For example claiming that some of Matt's claims in the Commons were in defiance of the ministerial code, when they were in fact accurate. The priority throughout this unprecedented pandemic has been saving lives.”