Coronavirus: Contact Tracing and Screening

(asked on 7th February 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the utilisation targets are in respect of (a) laboratory capacity to process covid-19 PCR tests and (b) contact centre capacity; and whether those targets have been reached.


Answered by
Maggie Throup Portrait
Maggie Throup
This question was answered on 23rd February 2022

We do not set utilisation targets for laboratories as this is dependent on public demand for polymerase chain reaction testing.

The contact centre aligns resources to the forecasted growth or reduction in positive cases across the country. As figures fluctuate daily it is not possible to predict the exact number of agents to meet utilisation targets. However, the performance of the contact centres is monitored. In January 2022, 62% utilisation on the Trace Service and 63% on the general public testing enquires line was reached.

The information requested on paid for laboratory capacity which has not been utilised could only be obtained at disproportionate cost. Between October 2021 and January 2022, the contact centre and 119 service did not use an average of 28% of paid time.

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