The Government has announced an overhaul of the NHS Test and Trace programme, which will see local authorities take a greater role in contact tracing.
Under the new system, local authorities will take over where the national team has failed to reach a resident within a certain time frame. In some pilot areas, this has involved local authority teams and voluntary partners visiting people at home.
Meanwhile, the national team – manned by Serco and Sitel – will reduce the number of contact tracers from 18,000 to 12,000. The remaining 6,000 tracers may be redeployed to ‘other campaigns’, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.
This change comes as just 72.4% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate in the week to 29 July, the most recent period for which data has been published.
Baroness Dido Harding, executive chair of NHS Test and Trace, said: ‘After successful trials in a small number of local areas, I am very pleased to announce that we are now offering this integrated localised approach to all local authorities to ensure we can reach more people in their communities and stop the spread of Covid-19.’
GPs have expressed frustrations with various stages of the Government’s approach to testing so far, including that many carriers of the virus are asymptomatic; patients could not receive their results without an email address, mobile phone or proxy; and that results only became visible to them last month.
Pulse voluntary donation scheme
Since the outbreak of this pandemic, Pulse has strived to support you, whether it be through our resources page, our ‘Clinical Crises’ series, holding policymakers to account with exclusives such as practices being supplied with faulty masks, or GPs being told to stop routine services in the hardest hit areas.
However, good journalism cannot be done on the cheap and, like the whole publishing industry, we have been affected by the economic slowdown. We also strongly believe the content we produce should remain free as we feel it is essential for you. Because of this, we have set up a voluntary donation scheme. There is no compulsion whatsoever to donate. But if you feel we are helping you, and you would like to support us, anything you can spare would be greatly appreciated. Read more here.
