ELEVEN days to pass calls to local tracers
NHS service delays ‘leave public at risk’
PEOPLE who may have been exposed to Covid-19 are not being alerted until up to 11 days later due to Test and Trace delays.
The failing NHS service is meant to tell local authorities if it cannot contact someone who may be at risk so that their teams can find them and tell them to isolate for a fortnight.
But in some cases this process is taking almost as long as the quarantine period itself.
The revelation comes as council teams continue to outperform the nat-ional service, reaching up to 99 per cent of people – compared with just under 60 per cent reached by call centre staff. The delay in releasing vital data was revealed by Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, which has been running a pilot for a month. He said the £12billion NHS Test and Trace service is “getting worse, not better” and urged “locally devolved control”. He added: “It’s messy, too convoluted and confused.”
Boris Johnson this week admitted just 15 per cent of Test and Trace users get results in 24 hours, saying: “I share people’s frustrations.” Meanwhile, a contact tracing insider says the sharp rise in cases has “completely overwhelmed” Test and Trace and left it with a 10-day backlog. The whistleblower, who works for outsourcing firm Serco, said: “All the positive cases I’m calling had symptoms or tested positive around the 14th or 15th.
“It’s extremely worrying. We could be leaving it way too late to contact all the case’s contacts to give them the correct advice.”
Professor Martin McKee, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said local systems always beat centralised ones. He said: “You can’t solve a serious crime by sitting in the office. Local councils are showing how it should be done. But it has come too late.”
Germany and Australia have had success in tackling the virus by using local expertise.
In Stanley, Co Durham, 10- year- old Jay Dooley tested positive on October 1 – but her parents were not phoned by Test and Trace and asked for their contacts until October 11.
They had quarantined anyway but mum Pippa, 41, called it “really, really worrying”.
Student Hannah Robinson, 22, quarantined after her housemate tested positive in Sheffield – but was not contacted by her NHS app. She said: “It’s no wonder the virus is spreading.”