Test and Trace repeatedly failed to hit goals

NHS Test and Trace is not yet achieving all its objectives, with too few test results delivered within 24 hours, and too few contacts of infected people being reached and told to self-isolate.

A new report from the National Audit Office finds that the failings have occurred despite costs for the programme escalating to £22 billion. The spending watchdog claims that the centralised programme is contacting two out of every three people who have been close to someone who has tested positive, with approximately 40 per cent of test results delivered within 24 hours.

Turnaround within 24 hours peaked in June at 93 per cent but subsequently deteriorated to reach a low of 14 per cent in mid-October before rising to 38 per cent in early November.

Contracts worth £7 billion have been signed with 217 public and private organisations to provide supplies, services and infrastructure, including test laboratories and call handlers for tracing. NHST&T has plans to sign a further 154 contracts, worth £16.2 billion, by March 2021.

A range of stakeholders have queried why the government did not involve local authorities more in its initial approach to tracing, given their previous experience in this area. Local authorities have become more involved in tracing over time. For example, from July, some local authorities started to set up their own contact tracing schemes, in conjunction with NHS Test and Trace, for cases that the national service could not reach. By the end of October, 40 per cent (60) had one in place with a further 46 per cent (69) planning to set one up.

As NHS Test and Trace rolls out further changes in coronavirus testing, the NAO says that it needs to learn lessons from its experience so far to ensure it can make a larger contribution to suppressing the infection. This includes planning against a range of outcomes to ensure it is prepared for spikes in demand, increasing its focus on compliance with self-isolation, and setting out a clear strategy for how national and local tracing teams will work together.

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: “The government has rapidly increased testing and tracing activity, building significant new infrastructure and capacity from scratch. However, it has struggled to test and trace as many people as it has capacity to, or to reach the contacts of people testing positive quickly enough. Test and Trace is core to the UK’s pandemic response. It must improve its performance with a focus on effective engagement with the public and integration with local efforts to improve tracing. We will explore these issues further when we assess the value for money of Test and Trace in spring 2021.”

Jonathan Ashworth, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said: “The £22 billion Test and Trace now has a budget larger than policing and fire service combined, but it has failed to trace sufficient numbers of contacts and ensure those who are contacted are able to isolate. Instead of handing multi-million pound contracts to big private outsourcing firms the government should have invested in local, experienced public health expertise. The government’s failure on test and trace continues to leave us with a gaping hole in our defences.”