Essex County Council and Southend-on-Sea Borough Council have partnered with leading cloud and digital services provider, ANS to launch a case management system for coronavirus contact tracing at a regional level.

Using ANS’ pre-built Microsoft Dynamics solution, the council is now able to contain potential Covid-19 outbreaks in locations such as workplaces, housing complexes, care homes and schools.

The local service will use testing data from Public Health England to track and trace known connections of positive cases and provide them with advice and guidance. All individuals who have been in close contact with a known positive case will be asked to isolate at home for a period of 14 days.

Leader of Essex County Council, Cllr David Finch said: “The launch of The Essex and Southend Contact Tracing Service signifies a united front by us and our partners in the fight against Covid-19 and marks the next phase in keeping our residents safe during these unprecedented times.”

Alongside the contract tracing system, both councils are finalising their own outbreak control plans, working with regional Public Health England colleagues, local NHS and other stakeholders. The outbreak control plan, as well as including information around the contract tracing system, will include processes and plans for identifying and containing potential outbreaks.

Andy Barrow, CTO at ANS commented: “Over the last few weeks, ANS has formed a great partnership with Essex and Southend to help them tackle Covid-19 in the local community.”

“While the national track and trace system is the first point of contact and picks up the vast majority of cases, local authorities are needing to manage complex cases at a local level. Through a combined partnership, both councils have been able to leverage ANS’ pre-built Microsoft Dynamics Case Management Accelerator, which is now enabling them to create, triage and action complex cases which are passed to them from the national Track and Trace system.”