Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many contact tracing operations there were following risk assessments undertaken by Public Health England in response to outbreaks of covid-19 in care homes in March and April 2020.

Contact tracing is not carried out in care homes in the same way as in non-health and social care residential settings. Staff and residents are managed in line with current guidance at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/884263/admission-and-care-of-residents-during-covid-19-incident-in-a-care-home.pdf

Public Health England Health Protection Teams (HPTs) undertake a risk assessment whenever there is a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19 in a care home. HPTs arrange for swabs to be sent to the home to test symptomatic residents for confirmatory purposes via Pillar 1 testing.

HPTs manage all staff and residents as potential contacts once one or more cases have been identified in a care home. Advice is provided to staff and residents within a care setting that has been risk assessed as having an ‘outbreak’ with respect to infection control measures including any requirements for isolation of contacts.

As part of the national Pillar 2 testing process, prioritisation is now being given to testing asymptomatic/symptomatic staff and all other residents in care settings when an outbreak is confirmed in a care home. On 13 May, the Director General for Adult Social Care wrote to Directors of Public Health and Directors of Adult Social Services outlining this prioritisation. A copy of the letter is attached.