Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the Government’s national Track and Trace system routinely instructs people who need to self-isolate to inform other members of their household to also self-isolate.

Where someone develops symptoms of COVID-19, both they and other household members should self-isolate immediately and should continue to self-isolate if they receive a positive test result. The NHS Test and Trace service asks people who have tested positive for COVID-19 to provide contact details for other members of their household so that they can be formally notified to self-isolate and, if eligible, can claim the Test and Trace Support Payment.

National Health Service Test and Trace has recently introduced changes to its processes so that, where a person who has tested positive confirms they have informed – or will inform – other family members of the requirement to self-isolate, the formal notifications to those other family members are issued by text or email rather than separate telephone calls.