Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, is to make a statement in the House of Commons on Thursday afternoon about the problems with coronavirus kits, which could hamper widespread testing.
The Department of Health said the NHS Test and Trace service had been notified that some test kits produced by Randox Laboratories may not meet required safety standards.
"As a precautionary measure, and while we investigate further, NHS Test and Trace are requesting that all settings pause the use of Randox test kits with immediate effect and until further notice,” a Government statement said.
"The risk to safety is low and test results from Randox kits are not affected. We will be supporting all testing settings to receive replacement kits as soon as possible."
Randox's test results are available in less than hours as the tests and its analysers are capable of processing 54 patient samples simultaneously. It is not the first time there have been problems with Randox during the pandemic. In May, testing was held up at the company's lab in Northern Ireland when a machine stopped working properly.
^ who knows what that means in actual non-politico speech though!