NHS Test and Trace

NHS Test and Trace

A box containing a COVID-19 lateral flow test
Agency overview
Formed	28 May 2020
Jurisdiction	England
Agency executive	Jenny Harries, Chief Executive of UK Health Security Agency
Parent department	Department of Health and Social Care

NHS Test and Trace was a government-funded service in England, established in 2020 to track and help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The programme is part of the UK Health Security Agency; the service and the agency are headed by Jenny Harries.

The service was the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Minister of State for Social Care. It has devolved to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Innovation at that ministry.^[1] The initial budget for the service was £15 billion, rising to £22bn in November 2020, and a further £15bn was allocated for 2021–22 to bring the total for the two years to £37bn. Routine contact tracing was halted on 24 February 2022.

The service provides temporary sites where samples are taken from individuals, processes the samples at a newly created network of laboratories, and communicates the results; infected people are instructed to isolate themselves from others and asked to provide details of their recent close contacts, who are also told to isolate. Almost all of the work is outsourced to consultants and contractors, although some of the laboratories involve other government bodies and universities. NHS Test and Trace is separate from the pre-existing infection control function of Public Health England, which works with NHS laboratories.