diff --git a/packages/datagateway-common/src/api/retryICATErrors.ts b/packages/datagateway-common/src/api/retryICATErrors.ts
index 26056ddd3..bb879acbd 100644
--- a/packages/datagateway-common/src/api/retryICATErrors.ts
+++ b/packages/datagateway-common/src/api/retryICATErrors.ts
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 import { AxiosError } from 'axios';
 import { useQueryClient } from 'react-query';
 
-export const createRetryICATErrors = (
+const createRetryICATErrors = (
   retries: number
 ): ((failureCount: number, error: AxiosError) => boolean) => {
   return (failureCount: number, error: AxiosError) =>
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ const baseRetryICATErrors = (
   return true;
 };
 
-const useRetryICATErrors = (): ((
+export const useRetryICATErrors = (): ((
   failureCount: number,
   error: AxiosError
 ) => boolean) => {
@@ -34,9 +34,12 @@ const useRetryICATErrors = (): ((
   const opts = queryClient.getDefaultOptions();
   // TODO: do we want to be more elegant in handling other types of retry...
   const retries =
-    typeof opts.queries?.retry === 'number' ? opts.queries.retry : 3;
+    typeof opts.queries?.retry === 'number'
+      ? opts.queries.retry
+      : // explicitly handle boolean case as we set this in tests
+      opts.queries?.retry === false
+      ? 0
+      : 3;
 
   return createRetryICATErrors(retries);
 };
-
-export { useRetryICATErrors };
diff --git a/packages/datagateway-common/src/setupTests.tsx b/packages/datagateway-common/src/setupTests.tsx
index 8ae41eb75..c4f3b73b8 100644
--- a/packages/datagateway-common/src/setupTests.tsx
+++ b/packages/datagateway-common/src/setupTests.tsx
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ setLogger({
 // mock retry function to ensure it doesn't slow down query failure tests
 jest.mock('./api/retryICATErrors', () => ({
   __esModule: true,
-  default: jest.fn().mockReturnValue(false),
+  useRetryICATErrors: jest.fn(() => () => false),
 }));
 
 // Mock Date.toLocaleDateString so that it always uses en-GB as locale and UTC timezone
diff --git a/packages/datagateway-dataview/src/state/actions/actions.test.tsx b/packages/datagateway-dataview/src/state/actions/actions.test.tsx
index de59fbba3..9a9e3d378 100644
--- a/packages/datagateway-dataview/src/state/actions/actions.test.tsx
+++ b/packages/datagateway-dataview/src/state/actions/actions.test.tsx
@@ -102,7 +102,7 @@ describe('Actions', () => {
       features: {},
       idsUrl: 'ids',
       apiUrl: 'api',
-      retries: 1,
+      queryRetries: 1,
       breadcrumbs: [
         {
           matchEntity: 'test',
diff --git a/packages/datagateway-search/src/state/actions/actions.test.tsx b/packages/datagateway-search/src/state/actions/actions.test.tsx
index d40924749..decc3942a 100644
--- a/packages/datagateway-search/src/state/actions/actions.test.tsx
+++ b/packages/datagateway-search/src/state/actions/actions.test.tsx
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ describe('Actions', () => {
       apiUrl: 'api',
       downloadApiUrl: 'download-api',
       icatUrl: 'icat',
-      retries: 0,
+      queryRetries: 0,
       selectAllSetting: false,
       searchableEntities: ['investigation', 'dataset', 'datafile'],
       maxNumResults: 150,