Test and Trace has had ‘no clear impact’ on Covid rates despite £37bn budget, MPs warn March 10, 2021 There is no evidence to show that the government’s Test and Trace programme has had any clear impact on reducing Covid infection levels despite its £37bn budget, parliament’s spending watchdog has warned. In a report examining funding into the scheme, the cross-party Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said spending on Test and Trace was “unimaginable” and warned [...]
Premier League tester to launch Covid testing ‘pods’ at UK offices March 8, 2021 Covid-19 testing pods are set to be introduced this week at a number of IWG-run offices, which will be available to both the public and employees, the genetic tester said this morning. The company, which does the testing for The Premier League, will roll out 10 pods this week, with another 100 due to be [...]
Test and Trace to receive extra £15bn, bringing total funding to £37bn March 4, 2021 The Test and Trace scheme is set to receive an extra £15bn, bringing its total funding over two years to £37bn. The contact tracing scheme, which has been awarded £22bn so far, will receive a further £15bn over the next financial year. The new figures were first revealed by the Huffington Post. It also revealed [...]
Opinion: We need to stop calling it ‘NHS’ Test and Trace February 21, 2021 Who runs NHS Test and Trace? “Surely the NHS?”, you might say. Not according to NHS England’s boss, Sir Simon Stevens. When quizzed by the Health and Science Committee last month, Stevens said: “I can’t comment specifically on Test and Trace because that is run by the Department of Health and Social Care rather than [...]
Live events could drive UK’s mass Covid testing push, says UK Music boss February 17, 2021 The live events sector could be a key driver of the government’s plans to launch a mass Covid testing blitz in England as lockdown is lifted, the chief executive of UK Music has said. Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, a former aide to health secretary Matt Hancock, said widespread testing using lateral flow tests “has huge potential to [...]
Test and Trace is failing to persuade 20,000 people to self-isolate each day, Dido Harding admits February 3, 2021 Around 20,000 people each day who should be self-isolating are not being convinced to do so by the government’s NHS Test and Trace scheme, chief executive Baroness Dido Harding has admitted. Facing a grilling from the Commons science and technology committee, Harding said that based on last week’s Test and Trace figures “circa 20,000 people [...]
Exclusive: Test and Trace slammed for tweaking counting method to boost stats January 26, 2021 The Government’s Covid-19 Test and Trace programme has come under sharp criticism for tweaking its method of counting coronavirus contacts to boost figures. The beleaguered contact tracing system last week changed its methodology so that Covid-19 contacts can be counted multiple times, City A.M. can reveal. Previously, people who had been in contact with any [...]
Dido Harding defends £1,000-a-day consultants for Test and Trace January 18, 2021 NHS Test and Trace boss Dido Harding has defended spending upwards of £1,000-a-day on consultants for the beleaguered contact tracing programme. During a grilling from the Public Accounts Committee, Harding told MPs she felt it was “appropriate” to bring in external help in “extreme emergency circumstances using short-term contingent labour and consultants for some of [...]
Government faces calls to scrap ‘inaccurate’ rapid Covid tests January 12, 2021 The government has faced mounting pressure to scale back its use of rapid Covid tests over concerns the results are inaccurate and may cause “serious harm”. Rapid Covid tests, also known as lateral flow tests, are set to play a vital part in ministers’ efforts to ramp up asymptomatic testing across the country as coronavirus [...]
Test and Trace failed to reach 30,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus in week before Christmas January 5, 2021 The Test and Trace scheme failed to reach more than 30,000 people who tested positive for coronavirus in the week before Christmas, at the same time the government warned that a new coronavirus mutation was spreading across the country. Latest official figures showed that 232,169 people tested positive for Covid at least once between 17 [...]