Test and Trace plan to support return to normal

The NHS Test and Trace business plan sets out a strategy to increase the speed and reach of testing and tracing, working with local partnerships.

From 10 December, the NHS COVID-19 app will allow those who have been instructed by the app to isolate, and are eligible, to claim the £500 Test and Trace Support Payment, providing they meet the eligibility criteria. The announcement comes as Apple revealed that the NHS COVID-19 app was the second most downloaded free iPhone app on its App Store in the UK this year.

Since NHS Test and Trace launched, a fifth of people in the UK have been tested at least once, more than 41 million tests have been carried out and more than two million people in England have been contacted and notified to self-isolate.

The next phase of the service will focus on: increasing the speed and reach of testing and tracing; better use of data, to help identify and react to clusters and outbreaks in close to real time; partnering with local leaders, backed by further funding worth potentially more than £200 million per month, in addition to over £780 million which has already been committed to local authorities; and increased collaboration with the public, particularly those most affected by the virus, so we can respond to feedback from people who use the service.

In the coming months, NHS Test and Trace will further enhance the role of local teams and Directors of Public Health in testing and tracing through community testing and going further on local tracing partnerships, allowing NHS Test and Trace to reach a greater number of people with the virus and their contacts. 250 local tracing partnerships are now live across the country.

As part of this, every upper tier local authority will be supported to build its own capacity, using community-based tracers who can draw on local intelligence. Community-based teams will focus particularly on vulnerable or harder-to-engage groups, as many have been doing successfully since the summer. These local teams will work with the national team as part of a ‘team of teams’, supported by extra capacity to meet surges in demand.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “Testing and tracing is an important tool in enabling us to return to a more normal way of life. NHS Test and Trace has built the biggest testing capability in Europe, and has made huge improvements in its contact tracing system. I am hugely grateful to everyone who is working so hard to deliver these improvements. With up to a third of people with coronavirus not showing any symptoms, it is incredibly important to test those who could be infecting others unknowingly, so we are rolling out community testing to bring down local transmission rates.”