COVID-19 Infection Survey: Requests for participation by region and number of tests conducted

You asked

Regarding the COVID-19 Infection Survey that is being carried out by the ONS.

The ONS has sent letters requesting participation to 11,000 households as part of of the first phase.

Please provide the following information:

1. Please confirm letters were indeed sent to 11,000 households and if not, how many households were sent the letter ?

2. Please provide the number of these letters sent to each NHS England region.

Further, please provide the number of COVID tests carried out in England broken down by each NHS England region.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

We have answered your questions where we can with the data we hold.  

1. ONS sent out 20,275 letters to households for the first phase of the Covid-19 Infection survey (CIS). The number you are using (c.11,000) comes from the number of enrolments from phase 1 which was 10,326 enrolments (responding households). For more information about the pilot including response rates, please see the Coronavirus (COVID_19 Infection Survey pilot: England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 16 October 2020, and the data tables.

2. The number of letters sent out week commencing 20 April 2020, in England are provided by Government office for the region (GOR) rather than NHS England region as that has been the standardised basis for the publication of regional statistics since 1996.

3. Please see download accompanying this response, named 'FoI request – swab tests by region'. This is the data table showing the number of completed nose and throat swab tests, full study period to 23 October 2020 broken down by Government office for the region (GOR). The table presents the number of completed nose and throat swab tests that have been processed at the laboratories. Incomplete tests are not included (e.g. voids).