Coronavirus contact tracers will not tell police if people have breached lockdown

'Tougher measures' could be introduced to enforce self-isolation if people do not comply voluntarily, Department of Health says

Contact tracers will not inform the police if people reveal that they have broken coronavirus lockdown laws, the government has said.

There are concerns that infected people may not be honest about where they have been, or who with, if they fear that they or their loved ones will be penalised.

But the Department of Health said that all information shared with the NHS Test and Trace service is confidential and will not be passed on to the police or other bodies.

It said it was important that people who test positive share accurate information on who they have been in contact with so the virus can be contained.

Under the new system, those with confirmed Covid-19 will be contacted by contact tracers and asked about their recent interactions, which will include people who have been within two metres for more than 15 minutes.

Anyone identified will be told to self-isolate for 14 days, even if they do not have symptoms, and seek a test if they develop Covid-19.

Isolation instructions are currently voluntary but the Department of Health said that “tougher measures” would be introduced if people do not comply, such as home visits and fines.

The service - seen as key to easing lockdown restrictions - has been rolled out across England with the help of 25,000 contact tracers, while a separate app has been delayed.

The Department for Health admitted “some staff initially encountered issues logging on to their systems” on Thursday, while MPs said they were told the programme would not be operational at a local level until the end of next month.

The health secretary said he believed that “the vast majority” of people self-isolate voluntarily under the new system.

“I think that the vast majority of people will understand that it is in everybody's interest that those who are in higher risk follow the requests from the NHS, these instructions, and it is very important that they do,” Matt Hancock told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"This is about how, as a country, we get out of this lockdown in the safest possible way, short of having a vaccine or an effective treatment, which obviously we're working on but we don't yet have.”

Mr Hancock said people will not receive penalties for failing to abide by the guidelines “in the first instance”, but left open the possibility of making it mandatory for people to stay at home in the future.

The Health Protection Regulations, which allow people to fine and arrest people for breaking the lockdown, currently make it illegal to leave home without “reasonable excuse” but do not contain any powers on isolation requirements.

The separate Coronavirus Act empowers public health officials and police to order “potentially infectious persons” to a “place suitable for screening and assessment”, but not their own homes.

Anyone arriving in the UK will also be required to self-isolate for 14 days from 8 June.

Human rights groups have raised concerns about a Public Health England privacy notice stating that the NHS may keep personal data about people with coronavirus for 20 years as part of the tracing programme.

The body said it was important to retain information about infected people and their contacts “to help control any future outbreaks” and that it would be held securely.

The national launch of an NHS contact tracing app has been delayed but Mr Hancock played down its importance on Thursday.

The health secretary said: “The pilot on the Isle of Wight showed that the best thing to do was to introduce the human contact tracing, and then build on that once people have got used to the idea that when the NHS Test and Trace system get in contact you've got to do quite a big thing, which is to isolate for two weeks.”

Mr Hancock said the app, which uses Bluetooth signals to detect when users come close to one another, will be useful later because it could help broader tracing like on public transport where people do not know who they have come into contact with.

Unlike the human contact tracing system, the app allows people to trigger an alert when they self-report coronavirus symptoms, rather than a verified test result.

The plan raised concerns that users could lie about falling ill to spam people with malicious alerts, but Hampshire Police told The Independent they had not yet received any reports of misuse on the Isle of Wight.

The NHS Providers group, which represents trusts in England, said the UK was “weeks behind” where it should be with coronavirus testing and tracing.

Chief executive Chris Hopson said: “We think it has been very unhelpful for the government to say there will be a world-class test and trace system in place on 1 June because that was never going to be the case.”

Baroness Dido Harding, executive chair of NHS Test and Trace, was said to have told MPs in a call on Thursday that the service would be operational locally at the end of June.

Labour former minister Ben Bradshaw said that was in ”complete variance“ with Boris Johnson's pledge to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions last week that the system would be running by Monday.