The COVID-19 crisis has become an unprecedented global health issue impacting communities and families across the UK. Our teams worldwide are working around the clock to ensure we continue to provide important services during this most critical time, while keeping our people safe. This includes a new effort with the UK Government where industry partners, universities and research institutes are lending expertise to boost testing capacity.
Leveraging our logistics network
This collaboration will complement the existing testing programmes in place and aims to add new testing capacity with the creation of additional hub laboratories, test centres and a delivery service for home testing. We are proud to be supporting this initiative, leveraging our logistics network to deliver test kits to homes around the country. This will ensure those not able to travel to a test centre can still take a test. We are waiving fees and providing this service free of charge. Other partners for the initiative include Thermo Fisher Scientific, Boots, Royal Mail and Randox, alongside the Wellcome Trust and top UK universities.
Health Secretary, Matt Hancock said: “We want to save lives, protect the most vulnerable, and relieve pressure on our NHS. I pay tribute to the generosity and public spirit of Britain's universities, research institutes and companies who have lent us their equipment without hesitation.”
We believe our role serving customers and the community during this time is a critical one, and we are committed to working closely with the Government to identify ways in which we can support efforts to respond to the crisis.
These tests will not be available over the counter or for purchase online from any retailers. We continue to work closely with Government on projects related to COVID-19. This includes Amazon Web Services (AWS) providing technology support for the development of the test requesting portals for the UK.
Caring for our people, partners and customers
As we fulfil orders on behalf of the Government, nothing is more important to us than making sure we protect the health of our people and partners. With guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO), we've implemented a series of preventative health measures at our sites around the world. To date, we've made over 150 significant process changes to ensure the health and safety of our Amazon teams. You can read more here.
In addition, we’re supporting other efforts in the UK and around the world to address the crisis, including AWS working closely with the World Health Organisation to accelerate the effort to track the virus, understand its outbreak and to better contain its spread. AWS is also helping to provide infrastructure and technology to enable NHSX - a joint unit between the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and NHS Improvement - to quickly and securely launch a Covid-19 response platform for critical public services. You can read more about these initiatives here.
Health information and advice is available on the NHS website and you can read more about the collaboration on the UK government website.
You can also get the latest information about Amazon’s response to COVID-19 here, and by following @AmazonNewsUK on Twitter.
