High street pharmacy chain Boots is set to offer non-symptomatic people Covid-19 tests that produce results within 12-minutes.

The nasal swab test, which will cost £120, will be made available to customers in 50 Boots stores across the UK from today, the BBC reports. 

The test has been developed by UK-based life sciences company LumiraDx and both the test and the equipment needed to process the result have been approved by medical authorities in Europe and North America. 

The retailer expects customers will use the speedy service as a private pre-flight test or before meeting with friends and family over the festive period. 

Depending on how the 50-store trial goes, the service could be rolled out to 200 Boots stores before the end of the year. 

The test also connects to a cloud computing service, which its developers hope could allow for surges in the virus to be quickly identified and tracked. 

The testing service comes at a critical time in the fight against the virus in the UK with caseloads surging and a growing number of regions facing tighter restrictions.

Matters have not been helped by the slowness of the government’s track and trace app with figures last week showing that just 15% of people who test positive through the system find out within 24 hours.

Boris Johnson had previously said all test results, unless there was an issue with the postal service, would be processed within 24 hours.