Test and Trace

Last week we provided details about the Government’s new Test and Trace process – the NHS service, which aims to ensure that anyone who develops symptoms of covid-19 can quickly be tested to find out if they have the virus.

The NHS Test and Trace service is essential to the Government’s covid-19 recovery strategy. This service will also play a vital role in providing an early warning if covid-19 activity is increasing locally, regionally or nationally.

Test and Trace includes a telephone service, a web-based system and an app. Look out for more information on the app launch date.

Contact tracing

Whether you sign up to the app or not, when it is launched call handlers from the newly launched telephone service may call, text or email you to give you clear instructions. This may include self-isolating because you have had close contact with someone with confirmed coronavirus.

Close contact means:

• Face-to-face contact less than one metre away
• Spending more than 15 minutes within two metres of someone
• Being in a car/small vehicle – even on short journeys or on a plane.

To support the management of absences we would expect colleagues who have been instructed to self-isolate to provide evidence to their manager that they have been contacted and told to self-isolate. The evidence may be an email, text or letter.

As part of the Test and Trace process, colleagues may be asked to order a coronavirus test kit.

Examples of preventative measures to minimise infection:

• Two-metre social distancing and hand hygiene should be followed at all times
• Floor signage and posters
• Having only one person in a van at any one time
• Changing our signing process to avoid the need for the customer to sign for items
• Retreating two metres from a customer’s door when delivering a parcel.

Remember, look out for more information and the launch of the app, which forms part of the Government’s Test and Trace service. Further guidance is available on www.gov.uk/coronavirus.

This Colleague Update can be printed and shared with colleagues so they are fully informed about the process and understand what to do if they are contacted.