Genome UK: 2021 to 2022 implementation plan

Department of Health and Social Care & Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy | May 2021 | Genome UK: 2021 to 2022 implementation plan

The Department of Health and Social Care & Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has published this first implementation plan, which sets out through a series of commitments how we will build towards the vision laid out in Genome UK. It will cover how they will make meaningful progress over the period of 2021 to 2022, and how our delivery partners will work together across the healthcare system. It also sets our priority actions for the current financial year.

The implementation plan is available to read online Genome UK: 2021 to 2022 implementation plan

See also:

Genome UK: the future of healthcare

The epidemiological impact of the NHS COVID-19 App

Wymant, C. et al | 2021|  The epidemiological impact of the NHS COVID-19 App| Nature | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03606-zb

The authors of this observational study investigated the impact of the NHS COVID-19 app for England and Wales, from its launch on 24 September 2020 through to the end of December 2020. During this period it was used regularly by more than a quarter of the total population.

The researchers’ analysis indicates that a large number of COVID-19 cases were averted by contact tracing via the NHS app, ranging from approximately 100,000 to 900,000 depending on methodological details. For comparison, 1.9 million cases actually arose

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen digital contact tracing emerge around the world to help prevent spread of the disease. A mobile phone app records proximity events between app users, and when a user tests positive for COVID-19, their recent contacts can be notified instantly. Theoretical evidence has supported this new public health intervention^1–6, but its epidemiological impact has remained uncertain⁷. Here we investigated the impact of the NHS COVID-19 app for England and Wales, from its launch on 24 September 2020 through to the end of December 2020. It was used regularly by approximately 16.5 million users (28% of the total population), and sent approximately 1.7 million exposure notifications: 4.4 per index case consenting to contact tracing. We estimated that the fraction of app-notified individuals subsequently showing symptoms and testing positive (the secondary attack rate, SAR) was 6.0%, comparable to the SAR for manually traced close contacts. We estimated the number of cases averted by the app using two complementary approaches. Modelling based on the notifications and SAR gave 284,000 (108,000-450,000), and statistical comparison of matched neighbouring local authorities gave 594,000 (317,000-914,000). Roughly one case was averted for each case consenting to notification of their contacts. We estimated that for every percentage point increase in app users, the number of cases can be reduced by 0.8% (modelling) or 2.3% (statistical analysis). These findings provide evidence for continued development and deployment of such apps in populations that are awaiting full protection from vaccines.

Paper available from Nature