Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the current management of hotel quarantine at helping prevent the delta variant of covid-19 from entering community circulation.
The Managed Quarantine Service operates through a set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), which include infection control. These procedures are based on advice from the Department’s infection prevention specialist. We have contracted with Global Secure Accreditation to provide liaison officers in each hotel to oversee the correct deployment of the SOPs. They undertake monthly reviews of compliance and their effectiveness and if required make recommendations for the Department to strengthen them. Should an outbreak occur, incident management teams investigate the cause and implement measures to stop further transmission. Directors of Public Health and Environmental Health take considerable interest in all quarantine hotels in their area and regularly visit all quarantine hotels in their area to assure the correct infection control measures are in place.