Council takes on contact tracing to help tackle Covid-19 transmission
03 Feb 2021 ARCHIVED (over 3 months old) - view latest news
Northumberland County Council is to support the NHS in its bid to stop the spread of Covid-19 by helping to ensure that residents who have tested positive are informed of the need for them to self-isolate.
From February 4, the council team will pick up contact tracing responsibility for Northumberland residents who have tested positive for Covid-19 but who the national NHS Test and Trace team have been unable to contact.
This will ensure that every known infection is investigated and those who have been in close or direct contact with Northumberland residents who have tested positive for Covid-19 - and could possibly be incubating the virus - are alerted.
Liz Morgan, Director of Public Health at Northumberland County Council said:
“Tracking down the contacts of Covid-19 cases is a vital part of the effort to reduce the spread of the virus and a robust tracing system is central to this.
“Our team will receive information about Northumberland residents who have tested positive from the national NHS Test and Trace team. We’ll be contacting those people to work through a contact tracing questionnaire and to share information about self-isolation and the need to protect others. We’ll also be able to signpost people to local support they may need in order to self-isolate.”
“If you receive a call, text or email from the local authority or are contacted by the national Test and Trace team and are advised to self-isolate, it is very important that you follow the guidance, even if you have no symptoms.”
Northumberland County Councillor Richard Dodd, Cabinet member for Public Health said:
“We have been working closely with Public Health England and the NHS since the start of the pandemic and will continue to do so when delivering contact tracing locally.
“This piece of work is really important as if people are told to self-isolate early after being in close contact with someone who has the virus, and they do so, then the spread of the virus will be greatly limited.
“Our staff have a great deal of experience supporting local residents and providing advice about Covid-19. We wanted to take on this new responsibility to help reduce the spread of the virus in the county, to save lives and to help re-open Northumberland for our residents and businesses as soon as possible.”
The Council’s local contact tracing service will commence on February 4. The core service hours will be 9am – 5pm on weekdays and from 10am – 4pm at weekends. We will also run a reduced evening service between 5pm - 8pm. The service will contact residents from our dedicated telephone line and email address: 01670 61 33 11 and contacttracing@northumberland.gov.uk. Where residents are unable to respond to our call, we encourage them to call or email us back and leave a message so we can arrange to speak to them.