Trace and track more successful when run locally, Northamptonshire public health boss confirms

Since track and trace has been handled locally it has been more successful than under the national system, the boss of Northamptonshire Public Health has confirmed.

Back in August, when the local authority was dealing with the Greencore outbreak, Northamptonshire became the second area in the East Midlands to launch a local system.Under the national system, 69 percent of close contacts of someone who had tested positive for Covid-19 were being identified, despite the national target being set at 80 percent.

At today’s weekly Covid-19 press briefing, director of Northamptonshire Public Health, Lucy Wightman, revealed that since the local system took over, the percentage has risen to 83.

Ms Wightman said: “I made no secret a number of weeks ago that locally we felt the national system was letting us down, actually in August we had the lowest follow-up rate through the national system, in the East Midlands and that clearly wasn't good enough.

"At that point we were still coming out of the tail end of the Greencore outbreak so the need for us to understand where these cases were and to identify anyone who might have been put at risk was really key.

“We were the second area in the East Midlands to develop a local contact tracing service after Leicester city.

“When we took over with a local system, where we take on the cases that they have not managed to follow-up within 24 hours of the notification.

“Their follow-up rate was 69 percent, now combined with our local contact tracing service, we're following up over 83 percent of the cases locally."

Despite the higher follow-up rate, there are some local people who still are not responding when contacted by track and trace.

The health boss was keen to point out that information is not used for any other reason, in a bid to encourage more people to follow the trace and track guidance.

Ms Wightman added: “We are still finding that there are a number of residents who sadly refuse to engage in this process.

“I'd just take the opportunity to implore people to participate, to engage, we don’t want to know where you have been or what you have been doing for any other reason than trying to protect yourselves and your loved ones.

“We do not use that data for anything else, we purely want to be able to warn the people who may have been exposed to the virus to isolate and get tested. There is no ulterior motive, it’s about making Northamptonshire as safe as possible.”

To find out more about what happened at this week’s press conference, visit the live blog.

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