Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many routine covid-19 tests of front-line staff and prisoners across the justice estate including the private prison estate have been conducted since 6 November 2020; what the average wait time has been to receive results for those tests; and how many results have been positive.

The safety of our staff and those in our care remains our top priority. We are doing all that we can to protect and support those who are more vulnerable to Covid-19, whether this be through age or an underlying health condition.

We are now routinely testing staff and prisoners to bolster our defences against the virus – meaning we can identify and isolate cases earlier and move quickly to contain outbreaks and protect local NHS.  Alongside the measures we have put in place since March, regular testing will ensure we continue to limit the spread of the virus and save lives.

Following recommendations from PHE, staff who work in prisons are regularly tested and prisoners are tested on reception and at transfer points.

The information on the number of routine tests conducted is based on returns provided from each prison establishment. Therefore, the following data is subject to change.

Testing totals since November 2020

Routine Testing of Staff – 228,854

Routine Testing of Prisoners - 53,857

Positive results from routine testing since November 2020

Staff – 449

Prisoners – 484

The current average wait time is 48 hours for the return of test results. This is expected to reduce with the recent introduction of lateral flow devices.

Data provided will not align with routine data that is published in the monthly service user publication, which includes prisoners and children in custody and the HMPPS Workforce stats which includes data for the whole of HMPPS staff - not just frontline prison staff.