Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what the turnaround time is for variant sequencing following a positive covid-19 test; and what the average timeframe is for positive variant cases being communicated to public health teams at local authorities.

NHS Test and Trace utilises genomic sequencing and rapid genotyping assays to detect variants of COVID-19. For genomic sequencing, the time from a positive test to variant detection is less than six days in 90% of cases. Rapid genotyping assay is being deployed across the entire National Health Service and Lighthouse Laboratories network and will detect and alert health protection response groups, including public health teams at local authorities, to the presence of a targeted known variant of concern within 48 hours from a positive test result.