Local Contact Tracing

Debate between Julia Lopez and Suzanne Webb

Wednesday 14th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Julia Lopez)]

It is a pleasure to close this debate on behalf of the Government, and I would like to thank all hon. and right hon. Members across the House for their varied and considered contributions this afternoon. NHS Test and Trace is one of the strongest weapons in our armoury in this fight against coronavirus. In the last seven days alone, we have processed more than 1.8 million tests, with 219,000 just yesterday. That helps us to break chains of transmission through testing, contact tracing and outbreak management in an end-to-end service to help to prevent the spread of the virus, protect local communities and save lives and livelihoods. As we have heard today, it is both a national and a local operation, with close working already taking place with local authorities. Like others here, I would like to pay tribute to those local authority leaders and directors of public health who have been in the heart of their communities helping to inform both those important strands.

If I may, I will take a moment to reflect on some advances. We have built the largest diagnostic network in British history. Has it been seamless? No. Are we getting there? Yes, absolutely. It is developing all the time.

[Suzanne Webb]

Will the Minister give way?

[Julia Lopez]

I am afraid that time is short, so I will continue if I may.

The network is developing all the time, and at the moment includes five major Lighthouse laboratories, 96 NHS labs across 29 pathology networks, and over 500 testing sites. This is a tremendous undertaking in such a short period, and in a period of national crisis. We are doing more testing per head than almost any other major nation. Yesterday, capacity sat at more than 344,000, and we are expanding capacity further to meet a target of half a million tests a day by the end of October. This will include our NHS labs going even further to reach 100,000 tests a day. More labs are joining the network, and we are investing in new technology to process results faster. We are also automating parts of the process, installing new machines and hiring more permanent staff.