Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason covid-19 contact tracing volunteers are required to be registered with the UK Public Health Register; and what assessment he has made of the potential merits of broadening eligibility for those volunteers to people with public health qualifications.

Contact tracing, as part of the NHS Test and Trace service, will be delivered by a mixture of health professionals and call handlers. Call handlers are not required to be registered with any professional body. Health professionals are required to have current registration with a relevant professional body given their role in supporting call handlers and engagement with the public with COVID-19 symptoms.