Police sent to deal with traffic near Sunderland covid testing centre

Officers were dispatched as a queue of cars clogged Admiral Way near the Doxford Park coronavirus testing centre.

A spokeswoman for Northumbria Police said: "At 1.15pm today (Thursday) we were called to assist with traffic issues on Admiral Way, Sunderland.

"Officers attended the scene and assisted with the flow of traffic, and the situation was resolved a short time after."

One mum told the Echo she had booked a test for her three-year-old daughter, but had to turn away after a systems crash caused problems at the centre.

The mum said she had been struggling to book a test online before finally securing a slot, only to be turned away when trying to reach the centre.

Police could not confirm this was the reason officers were sent to deal with traffic problems.

We have contacted the Department of Health and Social Care about the claims.

The Echo understands that a high number of people in the queue did not have an appointment and were sitting in the queue dialling the booking line.

When they got to the front they were turned away and unfortunately some people in the queue who did have an appointment could have lost genuine appointments because of the closure.

It came as a shortage of testing slots featured heavily in national headlines, with concerns it could hamper efforts to stem the spread of the disease.

Health chiefs have urged people to only book test appointments if they had covid symptoms.

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