Trials for an app which will alert people who may have been exposed to coronavirus are to take place soon, experts revealed today.
The app will aim to reduce transmission of Covid-19 by alerting people who may have been exposed so they can take action to protect themselves.
Speaking at today's Downing Street briefing, Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick described plans for contact tracing going forward as a "multi-faceted strategy with the (NHS) app at its heart."
Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England Jenny Harries added tracing the spread of the virus will only be possible when there are fewer infected people in the UK, and it will be carried out in hospitals and social care environments first.
A surveillance programme which looks at the spread of the virus within families is also being developed by the Office for National Statistics.
Dr Harries said: "This whole combination of digital apps, contact tracing, and understanding where pockets of transmission are that can be contained, potentially, as we go forward to get us out of the social distancing measures, is really important."
On how the new track and trace system for coronavirus will work, Dr Harries said: "If somebody has symptoms they take themselves out of society as they would now, but anybody who has been in contact with them - in a very anonymised and safe data-managed way using a phone app - will be alerted."
She added: "To get this up and running at scale and effectively is another significant task but lots of preparation under way."
On how long the system will take to be up and running, Dr Harries said: "We need the whole population to work with us on this, it's quite an exciting adventure it's a bit like social distancing, everybody has to do it together to get it to work."
She added: "We need to be trialling it and we will be doing that very soon."
It comes as the UK's coronavirus death toll rose to 28,131 after another 621 fatalities.
The death toll includes fatalities in hospitals, care homes, and the wider comminuty.
Today's number is down slightly from yesterday's daily death toll, which was 739.
It means the UK is just short of Italy's coronavirus death toll.
The death toll in Italy, which is the worst affected country in Europe, currently stands at 28,236.
Earlier today, it was revealed that another 370 people died in hospitals across England, a rise of 18 from yesterday's death toll of 352, while there were 44 in Wales.
Northern Ireland has confirmed 11 fatalities in the past 24 hours, while Scotland reported a further 44.
The numbers show a continuing trend of the number of hospital deaths slowly falling. A week ago, 711 deaths were reported in England, with 784 on Saturday April 18.
NHS England said the latest victims were aged between 38 and 100, and 25 - the youngest a 41-year-old - had no known underlying health conditions.
Today's figure is less than half the single-day record - 953 - reported on April 10.
NHS England has released a regional breakdown showing where the most recent fatalities happened, with the North East and Yorkshire seeing the highest number.
- East of England - 51
- London - 51
- Midlands - 63
- North East & Yorkshire - 89
- North West - 64
- South East - 32
- South West - 20
