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Contact tracing call

Posted By Linjt76

"Contact tracing call"

About: Public Health Agency / Contact Tracing

(as a service user),

We were quite shocked when the whole family were positive for COVID - my daughter had been very tired and everyone was "under the weather" but in all honesty we took the test thinking "I'll rule this out"; As a nurse I had a fair idea of what was required but we did keep an eye on our phones for the contact tracing service. They did call us about 24hours later which was fair enough. The call was quite quick and not necessarily informative. The call handler talked a lot about his experience of COVID as a healthcare professional and when he heard I was a nurse he said "you probably know all this". He was perfectly lovely and we had a good chat but I don't think the information given met my expectations. It felt quite rushed. Also I thought it was very strange that after this call, some time later someone else rang my husband to say exactly the same things.

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Responses

Response from Jane Mullin, Project Team, Contact Tracing, Public Health Agency 2 years ago
Jane Mullin
Project Team, Contact Tracing,
Public Health Agency

Contact Tracing, and projects associated with the Contact Tracing Service

Submitted on 31/03/2022 at 13:04
Published on Care Opinion at 13:30

Dear ‘Linjt76’,

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience of the contact tracing service. We have just launched Care Opinion this week, so apologies that this is not a timely response. I hope yourself and your family all recovered quickly. We aim to contact people who have tested positive within 24 hours of receiving the results from the labs, so we’re glad that this target was met in your case. We are also glad that you found the contact tracer to be pleasant and personable. It is an important point that no assumptions should be made, and health care professionals should receive the same level of detail as other members of the public. This is useful feedback that will be shared within the contact tracing team. I imagine that the comment “you probably know all this”, was intended as recognition of your knowledge and experience, but if you felt it influenced the level of detail provided to you, then we would like to apologise for this. Hopefully during the call, you received the key information relevant in your case. I’m sorry to hear that the call felt rushed, I know that this was a busy period of the pandemic, but regardless, we would never wish our clients to feel that information is hurried, we know it can be anxious time for people. In circumstances where there is more than one householder testing positive on the same date, we aim to manage this in one call. We feel that this is more efficient for us as a service, and less intrusive for our clients. On this occasion you and your husband were contacted separately which is not ideal. At times this is unavoidable, as test results from a household unit may become separated. However where it is avoidable, it is an issue we address in training on an ongoing basis. I have passed your feedback to our Quality Coaching Dept. so that your experience can influence training. Once again many thanks, and best wishes, we sincerely value your feedback.

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Response from Helena Quinn, Contact Tracer, Contact Tracing, Public Health Agency 2 years ago
We have made a change
Helena Quinn
Contact Tracer, Contact Tracing,
Public Health Agency

Submitted on 11/04/2022 at 12:12
Published on Care Opinion at 12:12

Dear Linjt 76

I just wanted to get back to you to advise you of an action that has been taken following your feedback relating to the issue of two family members receiving separate calls. This matter was passed on to Senior Management. All contact tracers have now been briefed again on the need to manage all daily positive cases that are in the one household on one call, where this is possible.

Again, thank you for taking the time in making your comments

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