Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, with respect to the trial on the Isle of Wight of the COVID-19 contact tracing application being developed by NHSX, (1) what questions the trial is designed to answer, and (2) whether those questions were discussed with and agreed in advance by NHSX’s Ethics Advisory Board.

The Isle of Wight phase is intended to improve our understanding of how the different components of our COVID-19 response fit together and how parts of the healthcare system interact with each other. It is also an opportunity to test that the underlying technologies and systems work. Our evaluation of the Isle of Wight phase is designed to provide us with answers on the health behaviours of people who use the app and those who do not, the attitude of individuals to the contact tracing app and their experience of using it, how successfully the app fits in to the wider health service processes, and the app’s influence on wider health seeking behaviours. The Ethics Advisory Board is an advisory body and does not approve documentation. Notwithstanding, and in the interests of transparency, an early version of our evaluation questions was shared with them for advice and constructive challenge.