Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the level of infection transmitted by NHS workers who have not been tested for covid-19.

Testing is a vital part of the United Kingdom’s response to COVID-19, as set out in the Government’s recently published Testing Strategy. The Government is working with industry, academia, the National Health Service and many others, to dramatically increase the number of tests being carried out each day, including for critical key workers. The Government is organising a larger population study to determine what proportion of the UK have already contracted the virus, operated by Public Health England and the Wellcome Trust at Porton Down. These tests are important to strengthen our scientific understanding and inform us all on the best courses of action to address this crisis. Key workers and clinically high-priority cases will be prioritised for testing. Furthermore, a number of supporting documents for Infection Prevention & Control (IPC) have been developed to support excellent standards of IPC within trusts. All documents are available at the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/secondary-care/infection-control/