316 contacts made in six weeks through Gwent’s Covid-19 tracing service

Gwent’s Covid-19 tracing service has made 316 contacts between June 1 and July 15.

The service, which was set up at the beginning of June, aims to identify and contact people who have been in close contact with a known case of coronavirus.

According to a council report, between June 1 and July 15, out 109 people people who tested positive for coronavirus, 108 were contacted by the service to check if they and their household were isolating and to gather details of others they had been in contact with.

Under current rules, anyone testing positive needs to isolate for ten days with members of their household isolating for 14 days.

Since the service began, 160 workers from councils in Gwent and the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board have been redeployed to the service.

However, a report presented to Caerphilly’s cabinet last week states this is unsustainable and is intended to be in place only until the end of August.

Caerphilly currently has 30 staff redeployed to the existing service and the council’s head of legal services says there is currently “no pressure” from their original service for them to return.

However, there are plans for staff to return throughout the course of September, which will bring a need to replace those staff for the track-and-trace service.

Several staff were redeployed from leisure services to the track-and-trace service, but the Welsh Government’s announcement that leisure centres can reopen from August 10 will trigger the need for staff to return.

When fully staffed, the Gwent contact tracing service will have the equivalent of 348 full-time positions, of these 106.5 will be from Caerphilly.

The report says: “The system operates on the basis that a local authority team will be responsible for tracing and contacting cases associated with their local authority; however, depending on demand the teams will be flexed to support the wider Gwent response as required.”

Caerphilly County Borough Council’s cabinet approved the report last week.

Councillor Nigel George, cabinet member for environment and neighbourhood services, said: “The council already has a wealth of experience in working with partners to tackle infectious diseases, but we recognise that these structures and relationships need to be significantly enhanced in size and scale to enable us to respond effectively to the current pandemic. 

“The agreement made by cabinet will allow us to put measures in place to prepare for the next phase of the test, trace and protect service locally.”

Additional reporting by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.