... as taxpayer puts £15bn more into Test and Trace

TAXPAYERS are to give the poorlyperforming NHS Test and Trace service another £15billion.

Small print from the Budget shows the system’s total cost will soar to £37billion over two years.

The extra cash is being handed out despite its persistent failure to find all contacts of Covid sufferers who need to isolate, issues with its smartphone app and controversy over its huge spending on consultants, nudging £1million a day.

Ministers are now under pressure to ensure Test and Trace, run by Tory peer Baroness Harding, delivers value for money before spending more billions on it.

Labour health spokesman Justin Madders said: ‘Ministers need to be honest with themselves and with the public about whether these huge sums of money are delivering what is needed.’

And public accounts committee chairman Meg Hillier said: ‘It’s costing a lot of money and it’s unclear whether it is having more than a marginal impact on the pandemic.’ The Budget ‘Red Book’ states that while ‘the Government has provided around £22billion for NHS Test and Trace this year’, it will pour in a ‘further £15billion next year’.

Test and Trace was launched in May as a centralised way of identifying people who have contracted Covid, then finding people with whom they have been in contact and getting them to isolate.

But it has been dogged by problems such as a failure to predict a surge in demand for tests when schools and universities returned in September; slow turnaround for test results; and low numbers of contacts being traced, leaving call centre staff with nothing to do.

The Department of Health and Social Care said: ‘As the virus becomes less prevalent, the test, trace and isolate system will become ever more important in identifying local outbreaks rapidly, enabling local and national teams to take swift action...’