People on Merseyside were unable to book a coronavirus test yesterday afternoon as cases in the region continued to mount.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service attempted to check testing availability in each Merseyside borough on Monday afternoon, only to be told there were no testing sites available.

This was the same for both walk-through and drive-through testing sites, despite Merseyside being named as an “area of concern” last week due to rapid increases in infection rates.

Even in Newton-Le-Willows, the neighbourhood with the region’s highest infection rate, the government’s website only returned a message saying the service was “currently very busy” and instructing users to try again in a few hours.

In other boroughs, the website said there were no test sites available, including in Knowsley where a new testing site has just been set up near the council offices in Huyton, and Halton which has also recently set up two new testing sites.

The same picture has been repeated across the country amid concerns the national coronavirus testing service is at its limits and reports that some people are being sent to testing sites several hours drive away.

Last week, people in Liverpool were told their nearest available testing centre was 250 miles away in Fife, while others were told to go to Sunderland, London or Dundee.

On Monday, LBC reported that there were no tests available in any of the top 10 coronavirus hotspots, many of which are also in the north-west.

The Department of Health and Social Care has blamed high demand for the difficulties in securing a coronavirus test, adding that more testing slots and home tests were being made available daily and extra capacity was being targeted at virus hotspots.

Meanwhile, cases on Merseyside have continued to soar, with more than 1,000 new cases reported in the week up to September 10 – double the previous week’s total.