The failings of the NHS Test and Trace service are more than just worrying, they are plain dangerous.
The latest admission, that nearly 16,000 positive covid tests were not recorded properly between Friday 25 September and Friday 2 October, has not only distorted test data to make it harder to monitor the spread of covid in our communities, it’s also delayed vital contact tracing.
This means that many thousands of people who have had close contact with people now confirmed to have covid will not have been self-isolating, so spreading the virus further.
In Brighton and Hove, the problems have led to 21 missed cases being added to the figures for Saturday 3 October and 41 cases added for Sunday 4 October.
With speed being critical when tracing close contacts, it means that scores of close contacts have not been reached by the test and trace service and told to self-isolate.
While those charged with running the service tussle about who to blame for the fiasco, the real fault lies with the decision made by the government early on in the covid crisis both to centralise testing processes and to outsource vital contracts to private companies, rather than rely on the expertise and knowledge already in place within our public health teams up and down the country.
Let’s be clear, there’s very little “NHS” about the NHS Test and Trace service. Those involved include Serco, Deloitte, Amazon, Boots, DHL, G4S, Astra Zeneca, Randox, Sodexo – to name just a few.
Companies have been awarded huge sums of money, often awarded contracts without any competitive tendering process, as has also been the case with PPE (personal protective equipment) contracts.
Tory peer Baroness Dido Harding, who heads the test and trace service, previously worked for Talk Talk. She is also on the Board of the Jockey Club, the owners of Cheltenham Racecourse, who took the decision to go ahead with Cheltenham Races in March as covid rates were rising sharply.
The former chief executive of Sainsbury’s, Mike Coupe, was announced as a new director at test and trace last week.
I’m sure that his experience will come in handy if we need decisions made about whether there should be snack stands at drive-through test centres.
But it’s unclear what direct experience he has of public health services.
The government seem to want our test and trace services to be shiny and corporate. I just want one that works.
I’ve long-argued that outsourcing our health services puts profit above public health. In the south east we saw this when Coperforma were handed a patient transport contract, only to be stripped of it seven months later when it was clear that they were out of their depth and could not deliver what was needed.
The test and trace service appears to be similarly out of its depth but on a much larger scale and at a time of national crisis.
It was foolhardy to plough ahead with easing lockdown before we had a test and trace system that would help us to accurately monitor the covid spread in our communities.
Maybe they should get green councillor Pete West to run it – the one who I heard on radio sussex talking to allison ferns who said blocking off half the main road from palace pier to west st with a cycle lane hardly anyone used and causing horrendous traffic jams and bus delays of 45 minutes could be remedied by altering the traffic lights
Perhaps Ms Lucas should read the report on the BBC website which reported on what caused the 16k missed cases. This showed that it was an issue caused by not using modern practices within the public sector. An old excel format was used which, rather than a newer one introduced in 2007. Yes, still using a format which was replaced 13 years ago! That the system runs using xl is a bit worrying, that the programmers used methods that out of date more so.
Both the private and the public sector can make mistakes. This was human error. Saying that this would not have happened without outsourcing parts is clearly wrong. My view is that this is the wrong time for a public vs private debate – we just need anyone who can help who has the correct skills.
Is Caroline serious or has she been making the most of the bars before they shut before writing this article.
The National Hopeless Service wasn’t even prepared for a pandemic that fortunately was not as serious as they were told to prepare for. They hadn’t even planned to buy enough PPE for their own staff and stuck people with covid into care homes.
They also unlike other European healthcare systems shut down cancer and other services which in the private sector would be open to a corporate manslaughter charge if the NHS was BUPA. The countries with the successful testing like Germany don’t have anything centralised and all the regions compete with each other on testing, contact tracing etc. If the NHS had had a proper contact tracing system in the place there would have been no need to outsource it to private sector companies that don’t do things like spend £10 million on a terrible app or use excel to hold databases of millions of records which then lost 16,000 records.