The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has ordered officials to work-up a plan for avoiding a second national lockdown, according to reports.

As part of the plan, Mr Johnson is considering asking the elderly to shield once again and is mulling lockdown-like conditions for London should there be a second wave of coronavirus infections.

The claims come after the PM was forced to announce a slow down of the lockdown easing on Friday, with planned relaxations for the leisure and beauty sectors delayed after a rise in Covid-19 cases was recorded in areas across East Lancashire, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester, with prevalence in the community thought to be rising for the first time since May.

In a report in The Times and Sunday Times, Mr Johnson was said to have held talks with Chancellor Rishi Sunak on Wednesday to run through possible options for avoiding another nationwide lockdown that could stall any potential economic recovery.

Under the proposals, a greater number of people would be asked to take part in the shielding programme, based on their age or particular risk factors that have been identified since March.

This means, those aged between 50 and 70 could be given 'personalised risk ratings' in a move that would add to the 2.2 million who were deemed most vulnerable and asked to shield themselves from society during the spring peak.

The advice for people who have been shielding was only lifted on Saturday for those in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and remains in place until August 16 for those shielding in Wales.

Meanwhile, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) was forced to deny that it had abandoned its pledge to regularly test care home residents through the summer following a leaked memo from Professor Jane Cummings, the Government's adult social care testing director.

The Tory administration has come in for criticism for failing to do more to prevent Covid-19 infections from reaching care homes, where some of the country's most vulnerable population reside, during the initial spring peak.

According to the Times, Prof Cummings wrote to local authority leaders to inform them that "previously advised timelines for rolling out regular testing in care homes" were being altered because of "unexpected delays".

Regular testing of residents and staff was meant to have started on July 6 but will now be pushed back until September 7 for older people and those with dementia, PA news agency understands.

A department spokeswoman confirmed there were issues with "asymptomatic re-testing".

The problems relate to a combination of factors, including a restraint on the ability to build testing kits, already announced issues with Randox swab kits, overall lab capacity, and greater than anticipated return rate of care home test kits.

The DHSC spokeswoman said: "It is completely wrong to suggest care homes were deliberately deprived of testing resources and any care home resident or member of staff with symptoms can immediately access a free test.

"We continue to issue at least 50,000 tests a day to care homes across the country and prioritise tests for higher-risk outbreak areas.

"A combination of factors have meant that a more limited number of testing kits, predominantly used in care homes, are currently available for asymptomatic re-testing and we are working round the clock with providers to restore capacity."

DHSC said it would not comment on leaked documents when asked about Prof Cummings' memo.

However, in an update just before 2pm on Sunday, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick cast doubt on reports of fresh draconian new lockdown restrictions and said talk of an expanded shielding programme was "just speculation".