Its aim is to "enhance health surveillance in the community, undertake effective and extensive contact tracing, and support people to self-isolate".
[3] By June, after a Freedom of Information Request (FoIR), the Welsh Government announced that they refused to publish correspondence as to why the deal with pharmaceutical Roche had collapsed.
[4] However, after a second FoIR by Channel 4 News the relevant emails were published, whereby Tracey Cooper, CEO of Public Health Wales, said that there was a deal in place with Swiss firm Roche to provide 5,000 extra tests a day, but that it was sunk due to pressure from the UK Government.
[5][6] On the day the disclosure was made public, Adam Price, leader of Plaid Cymru said that, "This is nothing short of a national scandal that shows the extent to which Westminster treats Wales with contempt.
[9] In March 2021, the Welsh Government published a series of videos on self-testing: This part of the service involves tracing people who have been in contact with an infected person, asking them to then self-isolate for 14 days.
Northern Ireland became the first constituent country to reintroduce contact tracing when, on 23 April 2020, its Chief Medical Officer, Michael McBride, announced that a scheme was "active".