Coronavirus in Scotland: Key worker tests for Scots 'ready to go'

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said a new system allowing coronavirus tests for all essential workers and their families is "ready to go live".

On Thursday, the UK government said up to 10 million key workers and their households in England could now book a test online if they had symptoms.

However, the scale of demand led to technical problems with the website used for applications.

Ms Sturgeon said she was waiting for the issue to be resolved.

At the Scottish government's daily briefing, she also announced that 64 more people had died after testing positive for Covid-19, bringing the official total to 1,184. The number of people dying outside hospital is known to make the total far higher.

However, Ms Sturgeon said there was "growing cause for optimism" as the number of patients in hospital fell by 38 to 1,710 and the number in intensive care fell by seven to 141.

• Coronavirus in Scotland - latest updates

UK government Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced the new testing arrangements at Thursday's Downing Street coronavirus briefing, along with a commitment to recruit 18,000 people to trace contacts of those infected.

Those who can now register for a test include NHS and social care workers, police officers, teachers, those in the justice system, supermarket and food production workers, journalists and transport workers.

Previously, a smaller group of key workers - those whose work is deemed critical to the Covid-19 response - were eligible for testing.

The aim is to allow essential staff to safely return to work, and testing is not yet available for the general public.

Scientists want to be able to expand to carry out "many thousands" of test at the lab within weeks

Mr Hancock said once people enter their details online they will be sent a text or email inviting them to either book an appointment at a drive-through centre or to request a home test kit, though the latter are currently in limited supply.

Ms Sturgeon told her briefing that the Scottish testing would be available for workers in four categories ranging from health and social care staff to people employed in critical infrastructure and other essential services.

"We will be sending out some more guidance and clarity on who is included in that and how employers and employees can access that but we will wait until the system itself has stabilised and the current technical difficulties it's experiencing have been resolved," she said.

The Scottish government has previously committed to carrying out 3,500 tests a day for Covid-19 by the end of April.

Its latest figures show there were 1,290 patients tested on Thursday.

A superlab opened this week in Glasgow which will focus on testing key workers such as NHS and care professionals.

The hope from staff at the Lighthouse Lab is that, as it scales up, they will move beyond key workers into widespread community testing of the general public.

The Scottish government has made it clear that testing is the first, and therefore critical, part of its test, trace, and isolate policy.

For now, the testing of more groups of key workers announced today is a first and important step.

I asked the first minister today for details on two questions - when would this happen and who would be covered?

Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland was "ready to go" and would issue more guidance - but not now. The technical challenges experienced by the UK government's booking service in England were given as the reasons behind that delay. We had expected an announcement imminently but workers who are unwell now have been left waiting.

The FM did however set out four broad categories of the key staff to be covered - expanding from health and social care workers, to infrastructure and other essential workers to volunteers - but not the detail of who exactly would be covered or how they would access a test.

So while workers in Scotland continue to wait for the who and when, the test booking system, so far for essential workers in England only, is closed with high demand.

The expansion of testing is something we have been waiting for as laboratory capacity increases - particularly as we hear of testing appointments going unused.

Testing is crucial for knowing how to treat the ill, understanding the spread of the disease, and getting frontline workers back to work if they are negative. Right now anyone else with symptoms self-isolates but testing will be a major part of the strategy when we slowly start to relax some of the lockdown restrictions.

Meanwhile, researchers from Oxford University have said they believe Scotland - like the rest of the UK - has already passed the peak of the outbreak.

Prof Carl Heneghan told the Good Morning Scotland programme that their analysis suggested cases reached their height on 9 April and the number of patients treated in intensive care units peaked three days later.