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UK COVID Tests Overview:
- Who: A UK health agency warned companies providing COVID tests that they would be removed from government websites.
- Why: After a review, the Department of Health says that it discovered discrepancies between the prices some companies charge for COVID tests it offers to travelers.
- Where: Companies providing COVID tests to travellers in the United Kingdom.
The UK government announced that it will warn 82 companies providing COVID tests for travellers and kick them off its website if they don’t address “absolutely unacceptable” inflated prices.
The government has given the companies three days to act after it found that they were advertising the tests at lower prices on the government’s website than what they were offering through their own sites, Law360 reports.
If the “cowboy” companies do not comply with orders to address the pricing issues, they will be removed from the government’s list of approved COVID test providers, warned the Department of Health.
“It is absolutely unacceptable for any private testing company to be taking advantage of holidaymakers, and today’s action clamps down on this cowboy behaviour,” Health Secretary Sajid Javid said.
The Health Department found out about the misleading costs through a review of the pricing and service standards of test providers, and it will report the findings to the Competition and Markets Authority, Law360 reports.
Concerns About UK COVID Tests Mount
With concerns about companies offering COVID tests allegedly ripping off UK consumers and possibly breaching consumer laws continuing to mount, the Competition and Markets Authority recently stepped in to help the government. The agency said it would provide advice and intelligence on the PCR testing market to Javid within the next month.
Javid said that the government was now going to start undertaking spot-checks to make sure all private providers were following the rules and meeting the government’s standards of transparency regarding COVID tests.
The government said that on top of the 82 companies it had warned, it had removed 57 businesses from its approved list as they no longer existed or did not provide the testing required by the UK government.
Currently, travellers from approved countries must get a COVID-19 test two and eight days after they return from a trip.
Despite the steps to protect travellers, consumer campaign group Which? told Law360 it was “inexcusable that it had taken the government nearly half a year to properly audit its own list of private test providers to remove firms that don’t exist and others advertising misleading prices.”
Which? Travel Editor Rory Boyland said that although a number of summer holidays had already been ruined by the “cowboy firms listed by the government,” it was imperative that the government now take immediate action to remove those companies that continue to break the rules.
Do you think the government should immediately remove the companies offering misleading prices from COVID tests from its site or issue a warning? Tell us in the comments section!
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