Oral Answers to Questions Debate
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Jonathan Ashworth
Main Page: Jonathan Ashworth (Labour (Co-op) - Leicester South)Department Debates - View all Jonathan Ashworth's debates with the Department of Health and Social Care
(4 years, 6 months ago)
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Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab/Co-op)
We need to be doing all we can to protect our key workers, especially those in healthcare. I welcome and note what the Secretary of State said about testing, but has he considered the study from Imperial suggesting that weekly screening of healthcare workers—testing them every week whether symptomatic or not—reduces their contribution to transmission by around 25% to 33%? Will he look at testing all healthcare staff whether they have symptoms or not?
Matt Hancock
Yes. The shadow Secretary of State has asked questions in a responsible and reasonable way, and I welcome his support for the test, track and trace pilot on the Isle of Wight that we announced yesterday. His question is quite right; we have piloted the testing of asymptomatic NHS staff in 16 trusts across the country. Those pilots have been successful, and we will be rolling them out further.