The Health Secretary has said she has “absolute confidence” enough contact tracers will be recruited to support the Government’s next phase in responding to covid-19.

As Scotland approaches week nine of lockdown concerns have been raised about the pace of recruitment of what are known as contact tracers.

A key part of enabling Scotland to ease current social restrictions, contact tracers will support the Government’s test, trace, isolate and support strategy by tracking down all those who have been in close contact with people who test positive for covid-19 and asking them to isolate for 14 days.

The UK Government has reportedly managed to recruit 17,000 contact tracers in recent weeks. Meanwhile media reports surfacing this morning suggested no one had yet been appointed after the Scottish Government launched its recruitment programme at the beginning of this week.

The Government has said it could need up to 2,000 tracers in the weeks and months to come.

Speaking today, Jeane Freeman said: “I have every confidence we will reach that number of 2,000 by the end of this month which is when we said we should have test, trace, isolate and support fully ready to go, because it needs to match any easement of lockdown.

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