Priority post
Through their NHS portal, the Government has now made Covid-19 test kits available to all members of the public.
They allow customers to safely self-test at home and return their sample to labs to check if they are currently infectious or not.
With the expected increase in demand for tests, we have worked with the Government so that from today, anyone using a home swab test will be encouraged to use one of over 30,000 Royal Mail priority postboxes across the UK to return their tests.
It is estimated that by moving to this system rather than ordering a courier to collect the test upon completion, tests can be processed, and results issued 20 hours faster.
Home test users can check where their nearest priority postbox is by visiting www.royalmail.com/services-near-you. From next week, more than 30,000 priority postboxes will also be labelled with stickers carrying the NHS logo of their nation.
Royal Mail is supporting this important national effort against coronavirus in three key ways:
- Royal Mail Relay continues to collect samples from numerous drive-through test centres across the UK to designated testing labs.
- A UK-wide, seven days a week, home collection service, where samples are collected from homes and returned to testing labs via the Royal Mail network and using our Tracked Returns service.
- Members of the public are able to use our priority postboxes to post their samples.
