Recruitment of army of 18,000 tracers will be critical

Recruitment of army of 18,000 tracers will be critical to help us track and control Covid-19.

Responding to today’s Downing Street briefing, Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents organisations across the healthcare sector, said:

“This is an important moment as we see real commitment and details of how we will develop contact tracing to help us track and control the virus when the current restrictions are relaxed. The recruitment of an army of 18,000 tracers will be critical, though any strategy will need to be linked into local organisations.

“We are of course delighted that testing will now be made more easily accessible for essential workers and their families as our members have been calling for. We have always argued that testing is not a panacea but it is vital weapon in the armoury of fighting this virus.

“Testing is important in different ways at different points in the pandemic but the fact that it has enabled two-thirds of staff self-isolating to return to work safely shows how important it is right now.

“Making it simpler to book appointments has to be good but it is vital that we have more accessible testing sites and that there are many more opportunities for home testing, for health and social care workers who are too unwell to drive or do not own a car.

“Our members have been frustrated at the lengthy process of getting appointments and some have they argued they would prefer to do it themselves. The creation of a single web portal is therefore welcome.”

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