Asked by: Lord Strasburger (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what data they use to calculate R, the reproduction index for the COVID-19 virus; and what algorithm is used to perform the calculation.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The process for formulating the R number is a complex one. The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), which convenes once a week, builds a consensus on the value of R based on expert scientific advice from multiple academic groups. The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies then reviews this and provides advice to the Government on the latest R figure.
Asked by: Lord Strasburger (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government why they decided to create a new centralised team of human contact tracers for COVID-19 rather than local teams under the management of local public health directors, as were used during previous epidemics.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government launched its new NHS Test and Trace service on 28 May 2020. This includes enhanced contact tracing.
Public Health England’s local health protection teams and local authority public health teams remain an integral part of the contact tracing system. These teams will be supported by around 25,000 additional contact tracers, a mix of call handlers and health professionals to provide an enhanced, larger scale service to reduce the rate of transmission as lockdown measures start to be eased.
To support the rollout of Test and Trace, all councils have been asked to produce dedicated Local Outbreak Plans by the end of June. £300 million new dedicated funding has been provided to councils to support this.
Asked by: Lord Strasburger (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 13 May (HL4448), whether they will publish the data sharing agreements held with all entities (1) working on, or (2) which will have access to data generated by, (a) the NHS COVID-19 contact tracing app, and (b) human contact tracers; and if so, when.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Where data are processed by commercial organisations and those data include personally identifiable information, the data processing agreements are included within the contract and published online at ‘Contract Finder’ on GOV.UK. We have published nine of these contracts so far and will continue to publish contracts when they become available. Data processing agreements are not included in contracts where personally identifiable information is not included.
Asked by: Lord Strasburger (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when the Data Processing Impact Assessment will be published for the computer systems that will store the data collected by COVID-19 human contact tracers.
Answered by Lord Bethell
Public Health England, supported by the NHS Business Services Authority, is preparing a data protection impact assessment for the NHS Track and Trace information system, and expects to publish this at the time the system is publicly launched.
Asked by: Lord Strasburger (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government which companies and other bodies will be holding data generated by (1) the NHSX COVID-19 contact tracing application, and (2) the contact tracing carried about by human contact tracers; and when the data sharing agreements with each of those entities will be published.
Answered by Lord Bethell
App users’ information will be stored securely on their phone. If they choose to share their information with the National Health Service, it will remain under the control of the NHS throughout. Companies working for the NHS to process that data will be bound by data processing agreements that specify how and when the data must be used. Private commercial companies do not have access to personally identifiable data.
Asked by: Lord Strasburger (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether any person will be compelled to download or use the NHSX COVID-19 contact tracing application; and whether they will propose that it be a criminal offence (1) to require a person to download or use the app by refusing to sell goods or services, (2) to discriminate in employment or (3) to block entry to public premises because a person has not downloaded or is not using the app.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The app will be one of a number of tools we use in the fight against COVID-19 but it will be voluntary. People will always have a choice of whether or not to download the app and will be able to delete it whenever they like. We see the app as having most value where its use is voluntary and we will look at how we can work with employers and services on this.