Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department holds information on people who have tested positive for covid-19 coming into contact with hospitals that do not have confirmed cases of covid-19-in the seven days preceding their positive test result.

The Department does not record this information as part of the information collected through COVID-19 testing programmes.

Increased testing capacity means that we will now be able to extend regular testing to asymptomatic staff, guided by Public Health England and clinical advice. This approach has been piloted in a number of acute, community and mental health providers and will inform the further roll out of this policy. This pilot should help our understanding of in hospital and nosocomial transmission, with the aim of limiting it where possible.