The UK government has promised again to increase the testing of citizens for COVID-19 after it failed consistently to reach its target of 10,000 per day.

Criticism of the government has mounted and ministers are now aiming to prioritize the testing of National Health Service (NHS) workers in a bid to get healthy, self-isolating staff, back to work. 

Around 2,000 NHS front-line workers have been tested since the coronavirus outbreak began, according to Downing Street. The service employs 1.2 million people in England alone.  

Germany has been testing about 500,000 people a week, while Britain’s current capacity is just 12,750 a day, a figure the government said it was aiming to double to 25,000 by mid-April.

"I hope on testing ... you will see significant increases this week. We expect to be at 15,000 tests over the course of this week and then moving further forward in the future," housing minister Robert Jenrick told broadcaster ITV.

"We do need to go further and we need to do that faster."

The number of coronavirus deaths in the UK rose by 563 to 2,352 people, figures on Wednesday showed, a 31 percent increase in a day.

One of the previous day’s victims was a 13-year-old boy with no apparent underlying health conditions.

READ MORE: U.S., UK medics threatened to stay silent on lack of protective gear

So far, tests have been focused on those suspected to have the virus, who have been admitted to hospital, but the government says it is trying to extend this to key staff in the NHS.

Jenrick said more than 900 health workers were tested over the weekend and a further 8,240 individuals on Monday (the combined total including the 2,000 front-line staff), as he faced a barrage of questions in media interviews about the low number of tests.

"Fix Testing Fiasco Now," the right-wing Daily Mail newspaper published on its front page.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove said shortages of necessary chemicals had been a factor.

"A critical constraint on the ability to rapidly increase testing capacity is the availability of the chemical reagents, which are necessary in the testing," he said, adding that the government was working with companies worldwide to obtain what was required.

The Chemical Industries Association said that, while there was escalating demand, "there are reagents being manufactured and delivered to the NHS."

It said in a statement: "Every business here in the UK and globally is looking at what they can do to help meet the demand as a matter of urgency."

READ MORE: COVID-19 tracking app could be adopted in Germany despite surveillance fears

Opposition Labour MP, Bill Esterson, said the problem was that the government appeared not to have ordered enough of the chemicals from companies that had offered to make what the government needed.

"These are often the same chemical companies that are producing chemicals for the tests in Germany," Esterson said.

"Companies in the UK can make them. They haven’t been asked. The shortage is because they haven’t been ordered."

Esterson's criticism was supported by ITV's political editor, Robert Peston, who took to Twitter on Tuesday to challenge the government's narrative.

Peston stated that the UK's Chemical Industries Association told him their members reported "no shortage of the relevant reagents."

The veteran journalist tweeted that the association told him they had met with a "business minister ... who made no attempt to find out if there was a supply problem for the vital ingredients of Covid-19 testing kits." Adding: "These manufacturers are more than happy to increase their production. But they need to be asked, which has not happened."

Asked about the apparent discrepancy between the government and industry over the shortages, Jenrick said several chemicals were required, "and not all of them, as I understand it, have always been available in the UK in the quantities that we need."
 

Sign up here to get the COVID-19 Europe bulletin sent directly to your inbox