Question reference: S5W-33190
- Asked by: Alison Johnstone, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Green Party
- Date lodged: 11 November 2020
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Current status: Answered by Jeane Freeman on 2 December 2020
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how it ensures that positive COVID-19 test results reach contact-tracing teams immediately.
Answer
Test results from NHS Scotland laboratories feed directly through to the Electronic Communication of Surveillance in Scotland (ECOSS) system from which data is polled by NHS NSS throughout the day and passed into the contact tracing service’s Case Management System (CMS) via the NHS Scotland Integration Hub. New datasets are added from ECOSS to the Integration Hub approximately six times per 24 hour period (at 06:00, and then every 3 hours between 08:00 and 20:00).
For test result data captured as part of the UK Government Lighthouse Laboratory system, data is regularly transferred from an English NHS Digital system to NHS Scotland’s Integration Hub using the Message Exchange for Social Care and Health (MESH), the main secure large file transfer service used across health and social care organisations. NHS Scotland poll the MESH system for new files every 10 minutes. The Integration Hub then separate outputs for the various NHS Scotland systems, incl. ECOSS and CMS.
This process is part of what is enabling Test and Protect to work well. Over the latest week – 09 Nov to 15 Nov – 95.3% of positive cases had their contact tracing interview completed within 72 hours of their test. More than two thirds (71.9%) had their contact tracing interview completed with 48 hours of their test.