ESSEX County Council’s Covid-19 contact tracing service, which operates with the help of partners in city, borough and district councils in Essex, is proving to be a huge success with 86 per cent of cases closed and 93 per cent of contacts traced.

The local contact tracing service was launched in June to support the national NHS tracing service. It originally just supported outbreaks in settings such as schools care homes and businesses.

The National NHS tracing service traced people who needed to self-isolate after coming into contact with people who had tested positive for Covid-19.

From October this year, when the national service had proved unable to contact a person, the contact was referred to the county level service who could use local knowledge and phone calls to track down contacts. The county tracing service was able to contact 86 per cent of cases which were referred to them by the national NHS service.

City, borough and district Councils in Essex have been supporting with the next step in contacting the last 14 per cent of cases which will result in even more cases closed and contacts traced.

The district level tracers were asked to help with contacts that had limited details such as no phone number or the wrong details, maybe a cross reference with Council tax info or other local sources.

Finally, as a last resort, a door to door visit was arranged to any non-responsive cases to ensure they are isolating, have the necessary support and to contact Essex and Southend Contact Tracing Service (ESCTS) to close the case and get any contacts.

Of particular note, among the district teams, the team from Basildon Council has proved to be a huge success. On December 14 Basildon Council contact tracers were asked to contact 40 referrals, and they were able to contact 31.

Dr Mike Gogarty, Essex County Council Director of Wellbeing and Public Health, said: “This is a great example of partnership working between the county council and the city, borough and district teams.

“Contact tracing is such an important part of our strategy to stop Covid-19 transmission and this work will have made a huge difference to transmission rates.

“I will again, underline the need to maintain social distancing to a width of two metres, to keep up a good hygiene regime of hand washing and the ongoing need to test, and self-isolate in the event of a positive test.”