Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to recruit contact tracers from existing staff in (a) sexual health services and (b) other NHS services relating to infectious diseases that have experience of contact tracing.

The Government launched its new NHS Test and Trace service on 28 May 2020. This includes enhanced contact tracing.

Public Health England’s local health protection teams and local authority public health teams remain an integral part of the contact tracing system. In order to manage the increased caseload expected as the ‘lockdown’ measures start to be eased, these teams will be supported by around 25,000 additional contact tracing staff, a mix of call handlers and health professionals.

Health professionals have been recruited from both within and outside the National Health Service and include staff who have worked in sexual health services, environmental health, and other areas.