Coronavirus: Contact Tracing

(asked on 19th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the timeframe is for the Test and Trace regime to be fully operational.


Answered by
Nadine Dorries Portrait
Nadine Dorries
This question was answered on 2nd July 2020

NHS Test and Trace is a new, large-scale service, which launched on 28 May.

We have recruited 27,000 contact tracing staff in England to support this service. In addition, a package of £300 million of new funding has been made available to local authorities to work with NHS Test and Trace to develop local outbreak control plans, building on the work already done so far to respond to COVID-19.

The latest data shows that in total, since 28 May 2020:

- 21,105 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in England and of these 20,968 (99.4%) were transferred for contract tracing;

- 72.6% (15,225) of the people who tested positive for COVID-19 were reached by our contact tracers and asked to share details of their close contacts; and

- 88.6% (113,925) of close contacts were reached and advised to self-isolate.

We are working to reach more people – and continually making improvements to the service to do that.

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