Door-knocking test and tracers more effective than call centre

ON-THE-GROUND test and trace teams are nearly twice as effective as operatives working through the national call centre, NHS data show.

Figures for the first 10 weeks of NHS test and trace found that local teams who physically knocked on the doors of people who have come into contact with coronavirus patients reached 97.9 per cent of those they tried to speak to, compared with 56.7 over the phone.

It comes the week after the Government committed to a significant reversal in its delivery of a “world-beating” test and trace system, laying off 6,000 call handlers and redeploying thousands more to work alongside local teams. However, under the revised formula local public health workers will still only get the names of close contacts after staff at the national centre have tried to get in touch for 48 hours.

Yesterday Prof Ivan Browne, the director of public health in Leicester, where the first localised lockdown was imposed, called on the Government to hand over the data after just 24 hours.

He also described as “ludicrous” the practice of assigning different tracers to get in touch with contacts living in the same house.

He said there were concerns about the level of coverage, as he described having “one hand tied behind our back” when trying to follow up contacts. “If we’ve got only 65 per cent follow-up, which is what you’re seeing in many areas of the country, that leaves an inordinate amount of people that are not followed up and able to carry on going around their communities.”

Using a local team approach helped follow up between 85 and 90 per cent of individuals in Leicester, he claimed.