Britain turned back on its own contact tracing app in 2011
BRITAIN invented a contact-tracing app nine years ago, with the Cambridge University academic who built the FluPhone app saying the Government “missed an opportunity” to develop the life-saving technology.
Jon Crowcroft, a Cambridge professor of computing, said the UK could have been “10 years ahead of the curve rather than about three months behind it”, as the NHS scrambles to build a contact-tracing app to curb coronavirus.
However, the successful efforts to build such an app fell by the wayside in 2011 as funding ran dry. Senior health ministers at the time have told The Sunday Telegraph that news of the technology never reached their desks – even as they drew up plans for a flu pandemic.
Meanwhile, senior Whitehall sources said that, despite the UK’s technical capabilities, a contact-tracing app was not “on the radar” of Government pandemic planners even in recent years.
As Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to announce that lockdown measures will be eased from tomorrow, the Government’s “test, track and trace” strategy is still not operational.
The pilot scheme, which ministers hope will help suppress a second peak, only launched fully on the Isle of Wight on Thursday, when the NHS Covid-19 App became available to islanders.
The app uses smartphones’ Bluetooth connections to log when people come into close contact. When someone reports Covid-19 symptoms it sends a notification to all those deemed to have had “high risk” contact, advising them to self-isolate for two weeks.
Hours after the app went live, residents complained of problems saying it was not compatible with new Android phones or that they were being bombarded with notifications.
Yet, as the UK scramble to get test, track and trace operational, other countries such as South Korea have been lauded as exemplars of the system.
Informed by the experience of previous serious coronavirus outbreaks such as SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012, the country developed a digital and human contact-tracing system. When the first cases were reported, South Korea was able to mass test and trace infections. So far the country has reported just 256 deaths from Covid-19.
Last month it emerged that NHSX, the health service’s digital arm, only started building the UK’s contact-tracing app on March 7– just over two weeks before lockdown was imposed.
One of the people NHS developers turned to when they started to look at building an app earlier this year, was Prof Crowcroft. He was asked for the source code for the FluPhone app that was developed by his team in 2011.
The app’s inception came about during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic of 2009, after which Prof Crowcroft was approached by epidemiologies looking at how Bluetooth signals could be used to track people’s movements. A team of leading epidemiologists, behaviour psychologists and developers won a grant from the Medical Research Council to build an app and test it with volunteers from Cambridge University.
A trial showed the technology could be used to track the disease spread. The concept was proved and in 2011 the UK was one of, if not the first country, to have developed a Bluetooth contacttracing app. The NHS was also aware of the project as the team worked with Health Protection Agency officials.
Prof Crowcroft said that after the initial grant ran out the team was unable to maintain or develop the app further. He said: “It is a missed opportunity (not continuing to develop the technology).
“The gap is a shame as we could have been 10 years ahead of the curve rather than about three months behind it.”
But one of the other academics who worked on the project, leading epidemiologist Prof John Edmunds, who sits on the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies committee, said he was sceptical at the time that the technology could be used to contain an epi
demic. He said in 2011 Bluetooth tracking was unreliable. In the years since, Prof Edmunds said the Government’s focus has been planning for a flu pandemic, where infections happen in the first two days, compared to coronavirus where transmission can happen up to seven days. This infection time opens a window for digital contract tracing to disrupt the spread.
A study by Oxford University in April found that if 56 per cent of the UK downloaded an effective contact-tracing app and followed its advice, transmission of coronavirus would be stopped dead, even before a vaccine.
Prof Edmunds added: “Our pandemic planning was based on flu as we knew a flu pandemic would come. Can you tell me what the next pandemic will be? But there will be a flu one.”
His assessment is shared by Andrew Lansley, the former health secretary who was in office when FluPhone was developed. He told The Sunday Tele
graph that at the time the Department for Health was focused on drawing up Britain’s influenza strategy, but that digital contact tracing did not come up in those discussions and he has no recollection of hearing about an app.
Yet, even in the Government’s more recent pandemic planning, digital contact tracing appears to have played little part. As late as 2016, a pandemic simulation found the UK unprepared for a crisis and the NHS would be soon overwhelmed in the event of one.
A senior Whitehall source involved in drawing up the UK’s pandemic plans admitted officials had failed to explore ways to use tech to suppress the spread of a new disease. “It wasn’t on our radar,” the source said. “Discussions about using contact-tracing apps never really took place at a senior level.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “The NHS Covid-19 app is a key part of our plans to track the virus and keep people safe. Our response has been led by the best scientific advice, and the app has been developed in line with the latest expert guidance.”