ENGLAND - TRACK AND TRACE FROM 4th JULY 2020

The Track and Trace guidance was published for England on 2nd July 2020, here.

GDPR allows us to request contact information from your staff, customers and visitors and share it with NHS Test and Trace to help minimise the transmission of COVID-19 and support public health and safety.

By maintaining records of staff, customers and visitors, and sharing these with NHS Test and Trace where requested, you can help us to identify people who may have been exposed to the virus. Containing outbreaks early is crucial to reduce the spread of COVID-19, protect the NHS and social care sector, and save lives. This will help to avoid the reintroduction of lockdown measures and support the country to return to, and maintain, a more normal way of life.

Customers and visitors

• the name of the customer or visitor. If there is more than one person, then you can record the name of the ‘lead member’ of the group and the number of people in the group

• a contact phone number for each customer or visitor, or for the lead member of a group of people

• date of visit, arrival time and, where possible, departure time

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To support NHS Test and Trace, hold records for 21 days. This reflects the incubation period for COVID-19 (which can be up to 14 days) and an additional 7 days to allow time for testing and tracing. After 21 days, this information should be securely disposed of or deleted. The requirement to dispose of the data relates to a record that is created solely for the purpose of NHS Test and Trace.

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NHS Test and Trace will ask for these records only where it is necessary, either because someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 has listed your premises as a place they visited recently, or because your premises have been identified as the location of a potential local outbreak of COVID-19.

NHS Test and Trace

NHS Test and Trace is a key part of the country’s ongoing COVID-19 response. If we can rapidly detect people who have recently come into close contact with a new COVID-19 case, we can take swift action to minimise transmission of the virus. This is important as lockdown measures are eased and will help us return to a more normal way of life and reduce the risk of needing local lockdowns in the future.

NHS Test and Trace includes dedicated contact tracing staff working at national level under the supervision of Public Health England (PHE) and local public health experts who manage more complex cases. Local public health experts include both PHE health protection teams and local authority public health staff.

You can read further information on how NHS Test and Trace works.