Following a difficult few days for some of our customers, we would like to issue the following statement.

We would like to apologise unreservedly for the issues caused by late returns to some of our customers test results causing on some occasions, people to miss their flights. We know this is unacceptable and are working around the clock to put it right.

The whole system, from flight bookings, testing and the postal service has been completely overwhelmed on a national basis When lockdown ended and bookings for flights resumed it became apparent that the system was struggling, but we wish to assure you that we are doing our utmost to facilitate a smooth process so that our customers are able to travel, be it for work or pleasure during these unprecedented times. These issues, which were to some extent out of our control, coupled with an unprecedented influx of demand have meant we have not been able to fulfil our promise to all our customers. Our dedicated team has been working around the clock to resolve these issues. We would like to assure you that no stone will be left unturned in an effort to make all customer completely satisfied with the service we are endeavouring to provide. Some of the steps we have taken are as follows:

• Improved tracking of all future swabs.
• We have increased the number of staff to handle enquiries as much as we possibly can within the timeframe.
• We have made a commitment to respond to all initial customer enquiries within the hour during the office hours of 9:00am – 18:00pm.

Whilst this does not change the outcome for some of our customers we apologise once again for this, we are looking into everyone’s complaint on a case-by-case basis and our dedicated support team is on hand to handle any incoming enquiry. If you have any queries please contact the team we will try and help you as much as we can.

Please contact us on covidswabbing@livingcare.co.uk

We would also like to take this opportunity to clarify the process. We work on 5 days from posting (now that we’re using Royal Mail’s Tracked 24 service); 1 day to post, 1 day to test, 1 day to return and be sent to lab and 24 hours for lab to process to results. If you are collecting a kit from Leeds (see above), you feasibly test there and then and providing it was returned during business hours, it would be at the lab the same day and results turned around in 24 hours from arrival at the lab.

Our advice is to use wherever possible the click and collect service.

Our click and collect hub is at the LivingCare Head Office at 4215 Park Approach, Thorpe Park, Leeds, LS15 8GBPlease be assured if you have been posted a swab and would rather not post back you are able to drop off at our office without booking a click and collect slot. We will also be introducing more collection points very soon.

All details will be on our website. We thank you for your patience during this difficult time

Thank you

The Living Care Group