LONDON: Swiss pharmaceutical firm Roche apologised on Wednesday for a supply chain failure that could delay the processing of coronavirus and other diagnostic tests across Britain.

The delays come against a backdrop of concern about rising numbers of Covid-19 cases and pressure on the government to introduce tougher restrictions to curb the spread.

The state-run National Health Service (NHS) is already struggling with the pandemic’s impact on waiting times and access to services such as cancer treatment and elective surgery.

Roche blamed the delay on “unforeseen issues” in its move to a new national UK distribution centre in southeast England last month.

“We deeply regret that there has been a delay in the dispatch of some products and apologise to any of our customers who have been impacted,” it said in a statement.

“The teams at the National Distribution Centre are working exceptionally hard, day and night, to resolve this issue as soon as possible.”

It added: “We are prioritising the dispatch of Covid-19 PCR (diagnostic) and antibody tests and doing everything we can to ensure there is no impact on the supply of these to the NHS.”

The latest setback comes after Health Secretary Matt Hancock on Monday blamed out-of-date software for nearly 16,000 positive tests going missing from official figures.

He said a “legacy computer system” at the public health agency that processed lab results caused 15,841 cases between September 25 and October 2 to be left off daily case numbers.