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 prevent scammers from impersonating people registered and trained as tracers for the NHS test and trace system.

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

NHS Test and Trace has been developed to Government security standards and we have been advised on measures to keep the public safe. The NHS Test and Trace service uses text messages, email or phone. The Test and Trace service will not ask for bank details or payments, nor will anyone be asked for details of their social media or any pin numbers or be asked to call a premium rate number. All text or emails will ask people to sign into the NHS Test and Trace contact tracing website with a set of unique characters provided alongside a secure link to the site. For those people that are unable to respond via email or text, perhaps because they do not have those options available to them, a phone-based service will contact them and support them through the process.

If the public are concerned about whether a call or email they receive comes from NHS Test and Trace service they can visit GOV.UK and view a page which lists the official phone numbers used by this service.