Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
TEST & TRACE ..A NEW LOW
Latest data shows 40% of contacts not reached Just 1 in 7 results back within promised 24 hours PM admits failures of his £12bn ‘world-beater’
It’s clear there’s room for improvement.. that could be diminishing the effectiveness SIR PATRICK VALLANCE ON FAILINGS OF HARDING’S SYSTEM
BORIS Johnson has admitted NHS Test and Trace is falling short after the rate of contacts plunged to a new low.
Just 59.6% of close contacts of those testing positive for coronavirus were reached in the week to October 14, latest figures show.
It is the lowest weekly rate since the system launched in May and down from 63% the week before.
And only one in seven people who got an “in-person” test had a result within 24 hours – another record low, months after the Prime Minister promised the target would be reached for all tests.
The PM admitted in his Downing Street briefing yesterday : “I share people’s frustrations and I understand totally why we do need to see faster turnaround times and we need to improve it. We need to make sure that people who do get a positive test self-isolate – that’s absolutely crucial if this thing is going to work.”
The proportion of tests returning a positive result rose to 7.1% – the highest since Test and Trace began. A rate of less than 5% is an indicator that a country has the epidemic under control, according t o Wor l d He a l t h Organisation criteria.
Just 15.1% of people who were tested at a regional site, local site or mobile testing unit received their result within 24 hours – down from 32.8% in the previous week. Chief S cientific Advi ser Sir Patrick Vallance told the daily briefing: “It’s really important to concentrate on numbers of contacts, isolation as quickly as you can and getting things back as quickly as you can. Ideally you get the whole process done within 48 hours. “It’s very clear there’s room for improvement on all that and therefore that could be diminishing the effectiveness of this.”
Taking i nto account factors including patients who tested positive who either could not be reached or declined to hand over details, the percentage of contacts reached is well below half. Sage had advised 80% should be reached.
Shadow Health Minister Justin Madders said: “To have over 40% not even being contacted by the test-and-trace system is an interstellar-sized black hole in the plan to reduce transmission.”
Prof James Naismith of Oxford University said: “Today’s numbers show a system struggling to make any difference to the epidemic.
“It is for politicians to decide what to do about this.”
It came as residents of Slough, Coventry and Stoke were told they faced Tier 2 curbs from tomorrow.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock made the announcement as a further 181 deaths with Covid-19 were recorded yesterday, with 313
patients with the virus in hospital including 37 in critical care.
The low rate for the centralised system run by Tory peer Baroness Dido Harding contrasts with the 94.8% success of cases handled by local health protection teams in the same week. These teams, run by lo cal council s, h av e received just a fraction of the £12billion in Government funding handed mainly to a network of outsourcing firms.
For cases handled either online or by central call centres – staffed in part by outsourcing firms – the figure was 57.6%.
It comes after outsourcing firm
Serco announced it expects profits to soar after being paid to run a major part of the failing system.
There have been calls for the private firms running call centres to be stripped of their contracts with funding diverted to local teams. Such a strategy has seen success in countries such as Germany.
The Government has refused to publish the names of all the firms involved and how much they are paid. But it recently emerged that some consultants were getting as much as £7,000 a day.
Outsourcing giants such as Serco were handed deals to staff and run centralised call centres. They then subcontracted work to numerous other firms. Serco was initially handed £108million of taxpayers’ cash before its contract was extended in August, which could lead to the firm getting £410million extra.
The deals formed part of more than £1billion of outsourced Government contracts going to firms run by Tory “friends and donors” during the pandemic, analysis shows.
Baroness Harding said: “I ’m grateful to every single person who is playing their part in NHS Test and Trace to make sure people who need one can get a test to protect the most vulnerable. We continue to reach the majority of positive cases and their contacts.” At the start of August, Mr Johnson doubled down on his boast of creating a “world beating” test-and-trace system, saying: “it does fit that description”. He added: “We’re testing more per head than virtually any other country in Europe.” martin.bagot@mirror.co.uk