Pilot drive-through coronavirus testing centre set up in Milton Keynes

A pilot for a new drive-through coronavirus testing centre is set to open in Milton Keynes.

The facility, which will be based on a car park in Grafton Street, will allow NHS staff, as well as other key workers like the police, to get tested for Covid-19.

If the trial is successful, the facility would then become a fully operational site.

The testing facility is ready to go. Credit: ITV News Anglia

Who will be able to get tested?

  • NHS staff

  • Carers

  • Police, fire and rescue services

  • Local authority staff, including those working with vulnerable children, adults and victims of domestic abuse, and those working with the homeless and rough sleepers

  • Defence, prisons and probation staff, and judiciary

  • Frontline benefits workers

The first tests will start from Sunday.

Local MP Iain Stewart told ITV News Anglia he was pleased more testing will now be available for key workers.

  • Watch an interview with Milton Keynes South MP Iain Stewart

"Initially, it's at a pilot stage to make sure that it's robust and all the arrangements are satisfactory," he said.

"That will allow not just the NHS frontline staff, but the other frontline staff, to have this testing done locally.

"We want, gradually, to be able to extend the testing facilities for other key workers in local authorities, like the emergency services and so on, and this will hopefully be part of the national ramping up of testing facilities."

Coronavirus: Everything you need to know