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 undertaking contact tracing for people that have symptoms of covid-19 at the point they seek a test; what guidance he is providing to people who have those symptoms on proactively notifying contacts before test results are confirmed; and if he will make a statement.

In developing the NHS Test and Trace Service, the Government has received expert advice from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (SPI-M), Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviours (SPI-B); the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) and others, to improve our understanding of what combination of interventions will have optimal impact on rate of transmission. This advice takes into account a range of clinical and behavioural evidence.

Contact tracing through the NHS Test and Trace Service begins at the point someone receives a positive test. Guidance has been produced advising people on how to notify others they have been in close contact with ahead of receiving their test results. The guidance can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/nhs-test-and-trace-how-it-works