Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the same criteria in respect of (a) time and (b) distance from an infected person will be used by the NHS clinical contact caseworkers and the NHS covid-19 contract tracing app.

The Government has launched the new NHS Test and Trace service across England. Anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 will be contacted by the NHS Test and Trace service and will need to share information about their recent interactions. This could include household members, people with whom they have been in direct contact, or within two metres for more than 15 minutes.

The National Health Service COVID-19 app anonymously logs the distance between your phone and other phones nearby that also have the app installed. The decision of precisely which other app users are notified will be determined by a sophisticated ‘contact risk model’, approved by the Chief Medical Officer. The algorithm is published on the NHS COVID-19 app’s website. NHS doctors and scientists are continuously updating this model to ensure it is as accurate as possible.