Local Contact Tracing
Debate between Jo Churchill and Clive Betts(3 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jo Churchill
As the hon. Gentleman can imagine, in the current circumstances the Department has a vast amount of correspondence. I will chase his inquiry personally when I return.
As I said at the start, it is not a case of either/or, as the Opposition motion makes out. The pandemic requires us all to work towards that common goal of beating the virus. Contact tracing is an excellent example of partnership in action. We have Public Health England’s epidemiology expertise to ensure that the operationalisation of the tracing model is built on a strong scientific base. Through NHS Test and Trace and its partner organisations, we can do it at scale. The national framework enables us to reach tens of thousands of people a day. It would not have been possible to do that on the existing infrastructure without placing an unbearable burden and strain on the system. To support this, we have local health teams who know their local areas and can provide expert management locally. Probably one of the finest examples of that was the response in Leicester, where local teams responded phenomenally to the challenge presented to them earlier in the summer, with the national oversight identifying that there was a problem and then the local response. We know we need people on the ground locally who can reach the most vulnerable and those who are disengaged from local services.
The local health protection teams form the first tier of the NHS Test and Trace contact tracing service, consisting of public health specialists. NHS Test and Trace and Public Health England work with local government colleagues, including the Association of Directors of Public Health, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers, the Local Government Association and UK chief environmental health officers, on part of this programme. It is, therefore, simply untrue that contact tracing does not include those experts front and centre, helping us deliver.
Mr Betts
I very much welcome the plan in the Liverpool city region, where the local authorities have been given £8 per head to take over responsibility for tracking and tracing. It recognises the most serious problem in the country, the Liverpool city region, and the funds have been given to local authorities. If that is the case, why does the scheme not extend to at least tier 2 regions, such as Sheffield, so we can avoid becoming a tier 3 region in due course?
Jo Churchill
The hon. Gentleman is correct to say we have provided £8 per head, giving Liverpool some £14 million to assist with its local public health attack on the virus and to help drive down the rates. Tier 3 local authorities get that help. The Government will work with local areas to accelerate local roll-out and to allow conversations to be ongoing, with additional money to protect vital services. Further details, I am sure, will come from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in time.
As I said, it is untrue that public health experts are not there front and centre. There are about 1,000 tier 1 contact tracers working within the core contact tracing system in health protection teams and field services across the country. More local recruitment is under way. We have more than doubled the size of local health protection teams since the pandemic began. The next layer of the test and trace contact tracing services is NHS clinicians, who signed up to contact people who have tested positive and talk them through the process to find out where individuals have been and who they may have been in contact with. Those clinicians do the most phenomenal job every day, stepping forward with their wealth of expertise to assist.
Today’s motion refers to local contact tracing and that has, in fact, been getting rolled out to local authorities across the country since August of this year. Has it always gone seamlessly? Has it always been perfect? I am always the first at this Dispatch Box to say that nothing ever does, much as we may want it to. Nothing ever does. We put the best efforts into making sure that individuals at a local level are supported in this difficult work every day.
Jo Churchill
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point and highlighting that 17 million individuals have downloaded the app. I am sure many in this House are using it frequently, because that helps us to test and trace. He also raises the point about talking to other countries, which we do in order to learn. When we have spoken to other countries, they, too, have reinforced the fact that this is not only about local systems and it is important to have an overarching national system and local systems as well.
As the Secretary of State said to the House yesterday:
“Local action has proved to be one of our most important lines of defence.”—[Official Report, 13 October 2020; Vol. 682, c. 198.]
Beating this virus is about a series of building blocks. Every day, week in, week out, we are in constant dialogue with local areas to make sure there is support on the ground for extra measures and that the local perspective is combined with the wealth of data we now have, and share, on the spread of this virus. The next evolution of this, thanks in large part to the wealth of data and the insight of Test and Trace, which we did not have at the early stage of the pandemic, is introducing the three covid alert levels that the House voted to approve last night, demonstrating our commitment to respond on a much more targeted and local basis, working closely with community leaders and communities.
Over the past few months, we have built a massive national infrastructure for testing. That work has involved local authorities identifying and setting up testing sites that work for their local areas, and deploying mobile testing where it is most needed. I wish to place on record my thanks to the Army, as we know that its deployment and mobility around the country has given us another tool in the toolbox in order to be able to fight. It is with great thanks to the local authorities that we now have more than 500 testing sites; many more are local walk-in sites to make it easier and quicker for people living in urban areas. The median distance travelled in person to a test is just 3.7 miles.
Jo Churchill
No. I am just coming to a conclusion, and I did give way to the hon. Gentleman.
In a few short months, we have made huge strides forward to tackle this deadly virus. It has been a collective commitment. It is not about us or them; it is about all of us—one team, working day and night together in the different areas, and using expertise to bring the virus under control. We will keep working side by side with our important local partners in the months ahead.
Some quotes from directors of public health have been bandied about, and the hon. Member for Leeds West said they supported the motion. I would merely like to say that the Association of Directors of Public Health
“supports the need to implement, at scale, a contact tracing programme. No single organisation or agency, whether national or local, can design and oversee this operation alone. The success of contact tracing will depend on a truly integrated approach between national and local government and a range of other partners across the UK.”
That is from its press release. On that note—I think it very firmly puts the Opposition motion where it needs to be today, which is to be defeated—I commend our amendment to the House.