Government Response to Covid-19

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Charles. I spoke yesterday at the general covid debate, where I covered lots of issues that I feel strongly about. Today I will talk specifically about NHS Test and Trace and some of my concerns about low levels of compliance, the mental health implications for people who are asked to self-isolate and the impact on their financial circumstances. I know a fair bit about this, because I was recently asked to self-isolate for 11 days. I immediately went to the guidelines, which said that a person will be asked to self-isolate if they have been exposed to somebody who has tested positive for covid within 48 hours of them developing symptoms. For me, I worked it out and it was 62 hours, and yet I was asked to self-isolate. According to the NHS Test and Trace guidelines, I should not have been asked to self-isolate. However, I was and I did. It was not pleasant, but we got through it. I got a very bad cold, which I thought was a cold and not covid. Then I thought I might have covid and a cold at the same time, so I did get a test and it was negative, but I still had to self-isolate for nine days afterwards.

I mention this because it got me thinking about the low levels of compliance. In the debate yesterday, I think my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) suggested that the figure for compliance was only around 20%. I have heard similar figures mentioned in the media. That is a concern, because if we are going to have a successful test and trace system, we need really high levels of compliance. The question is: are we asking too much by requiring people to self-isolate for 14 days, and are we getting very low levels of compliance because we are asking too much? Would it be better to be more realistic, by perhaps asking people to self-isolate for seven days and getting about 90% compliance? I happen to think that would be better, and that there would be higher levels of compliance.

We have heard about the financial impact faced by those who are asked to self-isolate, and how self-isolation not only impacts them financially—I know that financial support is available, and whether that goes as far as it needs to is a different question—but disrupts their working life. Their lost income and the disruption to their working lives need to be taken into account.

The other point is about the circumstances in which people live. Not everybody has a nice big garden, not everybody has a terrace and not everybody has a balcony. When we are asking people to self-isolate for 14 days, we should never lose sight of the significance of what we are asking them to do. Some people live in circumstances that mean that they really would not want to be confined in their flat for 14 days, because of the impact on their mental health and the sense of being imprisoned and unable to escape or even to go out for a breath of fresh air.

If we are going to have a successful test and trace system, we need guidelines that are easy for people to follow and buy in to. I do believe that the vast majority of people in this country get it and want to play their part. If they are asked to self-isolate, they need to understand the rules and the guidelines, and those rules and guidelines need to be followed—in my case, they were not. It needs to be realistic about what it is asking people to do. If that means being pragmatic by saying seven days instead of 14 to drive up the rates of compliance, that is better than the status quo where it seems like so many people are not following the guidelines.

We have heard all about test and trace, but we have not heard enough about the implications for people of being asked to self-isolate for so long, or from the perspective of our liberties. Yes, it is necessary to have a test and trace system and yes, self-isolation is necessary if someone has tested positive, has had symptoms or has been exposed to someone who has tested positive. When we are discussing local authorities sharing data with the police force, the great concern I have is that some individuals might not get a test when they have symptoms. They may think, “If I get a test, not only will I have to self-isolate for 14 days, but potentially nine or 10 people I know will have to as well,” and that might impact their lives in all manner of different ways: financially, mentally and psychologically.

Let us have a test and trace policy driven by pragmatism to get high rates of compliance, but also one that never loses sight of the significance of what it is asking people to do. That is incredibly important, and I thank all the NHS workers who are working on this. We need to have a system that is easy to follow, realistic and drives high rates of compliance.