The reason Track & Trace is failing !!!

All of which just goes to show what a total incompetent prat Matt Hancock and the rest of the scumbag 'nasty party' are !!!

 

Spot on mate

 

Yes spot on. Even David Dimbleby who you will know used to host BBC s Question Time laid into the Government over their handling and had to be gagged.This was on the BBC One Show and I witnessed it first hand .There is a growing Public Unrest and it's beginning to bubble. Even the Tory Back Benchers are having doubts on the way things are being handled.

Keep going Vlad your cheering me up .

 

There was an interesting article in the news yesterday, apparently another couple had seen Cummins wandering around a forest after the initial debacle about him being in Barnard Castle! They reproted that incident to the police also, the police did nothing, in fact they said it couldn't be proven.
Therefore my advice to everyone should we go into another lockdown is this, should you stumble across Cummins or anyone else in government breaching the lockdown then try and cause them some minor injury that will require hospital treatment, or cover them in gloss paint, either way will provide undeniable proof they've been somewhere they shouldn't. lol

 

Those bastard scumbag 'nasty party' don't want to know the details of the contracts they've signed to allow another SERCO cock-up !!!

Why Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn't want any scrutiny of 'Serco Test and Trace'

"Scrutiny helps improve government policy," Jacob Rees-Mogg told MPs.

Except, it seems, when the scrutiny is on the under-fire NHS Test and Trace system.

Half an hour after Rees-Mogg claimed he welcomed scrutiny, Labour MP Richard Burgon asked him to grant a debate on the "private sector companies undermining our Test and Trace system".

Rees-Mogg rose to his feet and issued a one-word response: "No."

MPs calling out the government over private sector involvement in NHS Test and Trace, as Burgon did in the House of Commons on Thursday, has become a regular theme in recent weeks. Here's why.

What's the issue?
NHS Test and Trace has just had its worst week for coronavirus contact tracing, one of the key methods to keep people safe from the virus.

On Thursday, it emerged that in the week up to 30 September – the most recent for which data is available – just 68.6% of close contacts of people who tested positive for Covid in England were reached and told to self-isolate.

Of those cases handled either online or by private sector call centres, only 62.4% of close contacts were reached. This compares to 97.1% for local council public health teams.

Why are people angry?
Much of the focus is on Serco, the private sector outsourcing company which was given a £108m contract by the government to oversee a key part of the contact tracing system.

As NHS Test and Trace continues to struggle with its contact tracing, anger is growing at the use of Serco, which has also been given a number of non-Covid related contracts in the past.

After his request for a debate was rejected by Rees-Mogg on Thursday, Leeds East MP Burgon told Yahoo News UK: "Lives of people in my community and across the country have been unnecessarily lost due to government failure, including handing over public money to private companies that have made a mess of the vital testing system.

"And now, disgracefully, they won't even allow MPs to debate this issue.

"This is the sign that the Tories' ideological obsession with the private sector is putting public safety at risk."

Labour MPs' opposition to Serco extends to the frontbenches, with shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth having demanded on Monday that the company's contract is not renewed "and instead give responsibility and resources to NHS labs and local public health teams".

Serco says it is responsible for 33% of the overall contact tracing workforce, and 50% of call handlers. The other 50% is provided by private sector call centre company Sitel, which also has a government contract.

Serco says it "has no further role" in NHS Test and Trace, though Open Democracy has reported it operates 30% of testing sites.

However, Serco did not build the long-delayed NHS app, as has been falsely claimed.

Why is it called 'NHS Test and Trace'?
The use of "NHS" is another key reason why the government's opponents are angry.

Many are upset about the optics of the NHS – an institution which the nation was applauding every Thursday earlier this year – being associated with an underperforming system, when in reality it has little to do with contact tracing and only carries out a small percentage of testing.

Every time a government minister stands at the House of Commons despatch box and refers to Test and Trace system, there is a flood of angry Twitter posts mentioning "Serco".

Other Labour MPs are pointedly refusing to refer to the system by its official name and are instead calling it "Serco Test and Trace".

Kingston upon Hull East MP Karl Turner is one who did so this week. He said in the House of Commons on Tuesday: "Serco Test and Trace has been an unmitigated disaster. It's more than an extraordinary waste of public money, it's a public health crisis."

In July, it emerged Serco was subcontracting the bulk of its work to 29 other companies.

Dulwich and West Norwood MP Helen Hayes said of the system's name on Thursday: "It isn't 'NHS Test and Trace', it is 'Serco-subcontracted-to-29-different-anonymous-subcontractors-test-and-trace'.

"Unaccountable outsourcing is no way to run vital public services which should be delivered by properly funded local public health teams."

Who else has been speaking out?
One group, We Own It, is running a dedicated campaign to "scrap Serco" and introduce a localised Test and Trace system.

Two weeks ago, it held a protest outside the Department of Health in Westminster. Pascale Robinson, from the group, said: "If we're to safely leave lockdown, save lives and hug our loved ones again, we desperately need a test, track and trace system that works.

"Unfortunately, what we have instead is an unmitigated disaster, with large parts run by Serco. It's time for them to be kicked out of the track and trace system.

"It's time we put our NHS and local public health protection teams in charge of the whole system. After all, they're the people who know what they're doing and have the experience to deliver."

What has Serco said?
A Serco spokesperson said in a statement to Yahoo News UK: "Serco is proud to be supporting NHS Test and Trace providing about a third of the overall tracing team.

"We are one of the two companies calling the recent close [contacts] of confirmed Covid cases.

"All the work that we are doing to support the government's Covid response is at lower than our normal margins."

And the government?
Minister Helen Whately defended Test and Trace in the Commons on Tuesday, saying: "Since the NHS Test and Trace system started it has contacted 78.5% of those who have tested positive and then 77% of their contacts have been reached."

However, when Cabinet Office minister Julia Lopez was asked to justify Serco and Sitel's contracts last week, she admitted there is "concern" at the amount of private involvement in government projects such as Test and Trace.

She said: "Consultants play an important role in what government tries to achieve in a particular project, but she is right, we have concerns about the cost of those consultants and whether we are too reliant on them, and we are actively reviewing that."

But Lopez also added: "I think that without the private sector we would have struggled to deliver the testing capacity that we have." Private companies are responsible for "Pillar 2" Covid tests, which account for the majority of tests carried out in the UK each day. The government's current testing capacity is currently 307,635 a day.

The Department for Health, meanwhile, has said: "Proper due diligence is carried out for all government contracts, we take these checks extremely seriously and all contracts also have break clauses in them, meaning if the company does not meet required service levels we can cancel the contracts and reclaim taxpayers money."

 

Interesting snippet of news via the BBC

The National Test and Trace is only achieving 57.6 %

Local Test and Trace is achieving 97.7%

The government as usual have backed a losing horse .

My own view is that Test and Trace should be put into local hands who know the local population better . Let them manage their own resources instead of wasting money on a system that doesn't work .

 

Perhaps this is why its failing, the scumbags are too busy counting their dosh, to actually do any tracing work !!!



Test and trace consultants ‘paid £7,000 day rates by Government’

PA
Oct 14th 2020 5:13PM
Private sector consultants are being paid day rates of around £7,000 by the Government to help with its coronavirus test and trace system, according to reports.

Sky News said it has seen documents revealing Boston Consulting Group (BCG) was paid about £10 million for around 40 consultants to provide four months' work between the end of April and late August.

The broadcaster said the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) received a 10 to 15% discount from BCG, whose day rates for public sector work range from £2,400 to £7,360 for the most senior consultants.

Its report comes amid ongoing criticism of the Government's £12 billion test and trace system.


(PA Graphics)
The DHSC said efforts to set up NHS Test and Trace required it to work with public and private sector partners, with "every pound spent" going towards keeping people safe and ramping up testing capacity.

But Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth, responding to the reports, said: "The figures being spent on this broken system are truly shocking."

He added: "Testing and contact tracing is failing to keep the virus under control, which makes it even more disgraceful that such huge sums of money are being spent on something that isn't fit for purpose."

Mr Ashworth reiterated Labour's call for a "short circuit-break" lockdown to "fix the failing test and trace system and to ultimately save lives".

Raising the consultant payments reports in the Commons, Labour MP Toby Perkins said: "You won't find dedicated public servants being paid £7,500 a day."

He added: "But what you will find is a basic competence, a knowledge of their area, a desire to make sure that the systems work before they are implemented.

"And that is what we need right now in our system."

They are paying these consultants the weekly equivalent of what a nurse earns in a year

Munira Wilson, Liberal Democrat MP
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson commented: "Just imagine how far that money would go if it was given to local authorities.

"They are paying these consultants the weekly equivalent of what a nurse earns in a year."

Major companies such as Deloitte, PwC and BCG have been working on the Government's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, managing the track and trace system, the purchase of personal protective equipment (PPE) and the search to produce working ventilators.

Sky News reported last week that more than a thousand consultants from Deloitte were working on the NHS Test and Trace programme, on day rates of as much as £2,360.

The broadcaster said documents showed the Government had since hired more private sector consultants to work on its Moonshot mass testing programme.

Some 165 consultants were recruited to work on the scheme between now and November, Sky News said.

This includes 84 more from Deloitte, 31 from EY and 50 from KPMG, with a further 42 roles potentially available for consultants.

Tamzen Isacsson, chief executive of the Management Consultancies Association (MCA), said a large number of consultancy firms had been brought in during the pandemic to support "critical government projects", including NHS Test and Trace.

"The consulting sector has provided multi-disciplinary capabilities and senior experience very quickly to support Government and has helped deal with complex negotiations around data, infrastructure and procurement at pace," she said.

Ms Isacsson said MCA member firms used by the Government had been procured through "competitively tendered Crown Commercial Service frameworks which evaluate bidding firms against quality and cost criteria".

Contracts required firms to "upskill civil servants" and "transfer knowledge", Ms Isacsson.

She added: "We should remember that Government is dealing with an unprecedented volume of workload and major upheaval due to Covid-19 and using external resources has enabled them to work quickly and with intensity in many areas."

A DHSC spokesperson said: "NHS Test and Trace is the biggest testing system per head of population of all the major countries in Europe.

"It's processing 270,000 tests a day and nearly 700,000 people who may otherwise have unknowingly been at risk of spreading coronavirus have been contacted.

"To build the largest diagnostic network in British history, it requires us to work with both public and private sector partners with the specialist skills and experience we need.

"Every pound spent is contributing towards our efforts to keep people safe as we ramp up testing capacity to 500,000 tests a day by the end of October."

 

100% - 97.7%= 2.3%

2.3% of 10,000 is still 230 people that have infected another couple people each in the last four days

97.7% still isn't good enough if you are trying to suppress the virus

 

I

I know that mate but its best of a bad situation .

 

Police now are given your details if you should be isolating .

Perhaps now if your one of those who have downloaded the Ap as a sense of duty ,just maybe now is the time to delete it from your phone .My view is that your good intentions have now been betrayed and that the Government is now getting mob handed in enforcing it .A sign of desperation that things are not going their way.

 

Two hundred & fifty thousand people who should be self-isolating, except for the fact they haven't been told by SERCO that they are infected, and yet this stupid, ignorant scumbag 'nasty party' Government managed to renew SERCO's contract to provide track & trace systems.



Outsourced tracing scheme fails to contact 250,000 people, analysis says

PA
Oct 17th 2020 5:30PM

The outsourced test and trace system has failed to reach nearly a quarter of a million close contacts of people who have tested positive for coronavirus, according to a new analysis.

Private firms Serco and Sitel failed to contact 245,481 contacts in England either online or from call centres over four months – missing nearly 40% of contacts, the figures show.

Labour said the figures show test and trace is “on the verge of collapse” and highlight the need for a short national lockdown to allow the Government to fix the system.


(PA Graphics)
The Government defended the system, saying test and trace is “breaking chains of transmission” and had told 900,000 people to isolate.

Boris Johnson pledged in May that the system, which has cost £12 billion, would be “world-beating” and a successful tracing programme has long been hailed as a way to ease lockdown measures.

Labour’s analysis of official figures released this week showed more than 26,000 people in the week up to October 7 were not contacted in north-west England, where the Liverpool region and Lancashire have been plunged into the severest restrictions.

The Prime Minister has threatened to impose the Tier 3 measures on neighbouring Greater Manchester, even if local leaders do not consent because they are demanding greater financial support.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Rachel Reeves said: “We are at a decisive moment in our efforts to tackle coronavirus, and these figures are a new low for a test and trace system on the verge of collapse.

“The Government is wasting hundreds of millions on a system that doesn’t seem to function or even use basic common sense.

“The Prime Minister must act now to reverse this trend. That is why Labour is calling for a short, sharp circuit break to fix testing, protect the NHS and save lives.”
The figures showed that the private firms did reach 372,458 contacts in the period of the data, May 28 to October 7.

“Complex” cases – which include outbreaks linked to hospitals, care homes, prisons or schools – are handled by local health protection teams, which statistics show have far higher rates of success.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We’re continuing to drive forward local contact tracing as part of our commitment to being locally led, with more than 100 Local Tracing Partnerships now operating, and more to come.”

He added that, when including local teams, 84% of contacts had been traced “where communication details were provided”.

This week Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer called for Mr Johnson to implement a two to three-week national circuit-breaker lockdown so test and trace can be improved.

The Prime Minister on Friday continued to resist the move, which has been suggested by the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), but said he “can’t rule anything out”.

Sage has also said in recently published documents that the system was only having a “marginal impact” on Covid-19 transmission.

 

• Well if the government can pay track and trace 'experts' £7,000 per day, then is it not right that everyone fuloughed or claiming JSA because their job has now vanished ought to be able to claim the same amount ???

Its also being said that £7000 per day is the same as what a Nurse earns. Really ??? Then why are nurses resorting to food banks to feed themselves ???



Gove defends £7,000 day rates paid to Test and Trace consultants

PA
Oct 18th 2020 6:14AM

Michael Gove has defended £7,000 day rates being paid to private sector consultants who are helping the Government to set up and run its testing system.

Last week, Sky News said it had seen documents revealing Boston Consulting Group (BCG) was paid about £10 million for around 40 consultants to provide four months’ work between the end of April and late August.

The broadcaster said the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) received a 10 to 15% discount from BCG, whose day rates for public sector work range from £2,400 to £7,360 for the most senior consultants.

Its report comes amid ongoing criticism of the Government’s £12 billion Test and Trace system.

We need to reduce our spend on consultants overall, but in the meantime, we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that we protect the NHS

Michael Gove, Cabinet Office minister
Mr Gove admitted however that there is a need to reduce Government spend on consultants overall.

Asked whether the spend was a good use of public money, he said: “Yes.”

The Cabinet Office minister continued: “Two things – firstly, it’s absolutely vital that we have all the expertise required from the private and the public sector in order to improve testing.

“As I pointed out earlier, we have a higher level of testing in this country than in any other European country, we’ve improving contact tracing all the time. Local health protection teams are doing particularly well in that regard.

“Separately, I’ve been clear as my colleague Lord Agnew in the Cabinet Office has, that we need to reduce our spend on consultants overall, but in the meantime, we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure that we protect the NHS.”

Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth described the figures being paid out as “truly shocking”.

He said: “Testing and contact tracing is failing to keep the virus under control, which makes it even more disgraceful that such huge sums of money are being spent on something that isn’t fit for purpose.”

Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson said: “Just imagine how far that money would go if it was given to local authorities.

“They are paying these consultants the weekly equivalent of what a nurse earns in a year.”

 

A couple of points, my wife works in the NHS, I've actually told her to look for another job, she could earn more money and have an easier time elsewhere, recently she's been working from home (she's back in her office now) and it gave me a chance to study her job in some detail. The amount of time, effort and money wasted in her department is unreal, the systems may have been modified but not the processes, and why, well simply because the powers that be say that , 'it's always been done that way'!
A nurse gets around £23K a year, not a lot, certainly not what some of these people try and make out they are earning, and certainly not enough for what they do. I've been involved in the NHS locally for years, I used to help out at the local hospital, organising charity events etc, so I saw a lot more than most people and a lot of it saddened me.
I remember when they were rebuilding the hospital, I did all the photography for it, they brought a woman in for the duration of the contract and when it was over they felt they had to find her another job, even though she was only brought in to oversee a particular event.
In my wifes office there were originally about 15 girls, as they retired or left for other jobs they were not replaced, at the last count I think there are about 6 left, and the workload is still the same, there's no money to replace them, apparently. Three times they've done a time and motion study and each time it has been noted that my wife cannot be doing the amount of work that she does, it's just impossible, the job requires 2 people, she does it by starting earlier, finishing later and not stopping for lunch.
When she was working from home she was a lot more relaxed, I made sure she started at 08.30, had a lunchbreak at 13.00 and finished at 17.00, she's now back in and stressing again. The problem with the NHS is the number of managers, they have managers managing managers managing managers, they perform very few useful functions but cost a lot of money and you cannot get rid of them becasue it takes a team of managers to decide to get rid of a manager, it would be like asking a turkey to vote for Christmas, it's a combination of fear and the 'jobs for the boys' mentality that prevents them getting rid of anyone. Basically a mid level manager is frightened of getting rid of a lower level manager in case a higher manager then starts looking and decides to get rid of a mid level manager!
Years ago a Matron ran a hospital, now they don't, most of them only work 9-5, they are neither allowed nor encouraged to be on-site outside of these hours, so have no idea what happens when they're not on site, now compare that with a matron of 30 years ago, she new everything that went on and had the final say on it. It was the matron and the ward sister who dealt with ward admissions and how long someone was kept on a ward, now they have 'bed managers', they have zero nursing experience in most cases and are more concerned with the turnover rather than whether or not a patient actually needs to be on a ward, in short most of them couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery! Bonfire night is an experience too, every year the A&E departments descend into chaos, overwhelmed by the 'surprising increase' inn admissions of people with burns and such like, thre's a general lack of preparedness, why? Bonfire night is like Christmas, it comes once a year and it's always at the same time, they should be ready for it. I worked in a hospital on one Bonfire night and was amazed at the chaos, people being treated in ambulances, a badly burned child left on a trolley in one because there was no room inside, a couple of ambulances taken out of service as they had deceased persons in them and nowhere to put them!
This all begs one very important question, what are these managers managing? If they were really neededed and doing their job properly there wouldn't be all this chaos!
Several years ago I was privy to a very disturbing piece of information, and it didn't come from my wife, apparently it had been decided that the numbers of sick elderly people needed reducing, so they came up with a plan. A little old lady takes a fall and breaks her hip, the NHS would treat the hip injury but, if while immobile in a hospital bed the old lady should contract pneumonia, which is fairly common among elderly people, they would not treat it, most of them would die and therby reduce the burden on the system! Now in my humble opinion that is nothing short of playing god, who is anyone to decide who lives or who dies? If we're going to do that with hip fractures in the elderly, what's next, allowing the victim of a car accident to die simply because they caused the accident, or a sick baby to die simply because it was the mothers 'fault' for getting pregnant in the first place!
All those years ago when Aneurin Bevan created the NHS it was to provide essential healthcare for everyone, healthcare such as treating the sick, or accident victims and a good job it did too, sadly now there are far too many un-neccesary procedures being carried out on the NHS, a young woman goes to her doctor and tells him that she's suffering mentally because her 36B breasts are not big enough, she feels inadequate, in she goes and comes out with a massive pair of 40 FF's, about a year later when it dawns on her she's not going to be a famous model, she returns to her doctor, she wants a reduction, she feels like a freak, well the op should never have been done in the first place, it's the same with weight loss surgery the NHS spends a lot of money clearing up the mess when people have gone abroad for tummy tucks and it has all gone wrong on their return, become infected for example. I heard one obese woman who after having a gastric band fitted was extolling the virtues of the food blender, 'before my op I used to eat three kebabs a day, after the op I couldn't manage one, now I've got a blender and I can eat two again'. FFS, what was the point in doing the op in the first place, it's the same with gender reasignment, as a sex change is known today, that shouldn't be done on the NHS either.
We need to get the NHS back to what it was and stop outsourcing work to companies who are only interested in making money, also any company who has anyone employed at senior level who has a relative working in governement should automatically be banned from tendering for contracts, look at the recent situation where a company got involved in track and trace all because one of the top men was Boris Johnsons brother.

 

Didn't that scumbag-in-chief promuse us a "world beating service ??? - I wouldn't exactly call this world beating - I'd say it as national disgrace !!!


Issue with UK testing capacity sees delay in Covid-19 results

PA
Oct 18th 2020 11:24AM

Scotland has recorded a further 316 positive Covid-19 tests, the latest Scottish Government figures show.

However, the Government warned it did not reflect the total number of new cases or new tests, as there had been a processing delay as a result of a capacity issue.

The Lighthouse testing facility in Glasgow experienced issues, resulting in a number of tests being sent to other facilities throughout the UK and Northern Ireland.

They said any additional cases will be reported in the coming days.

There were no new deaths reported relating to coronavirus.

The total number of fatalities still remains at 2,609, though separate figures from the National Records of Scotland, which records all deaths where coronavirus is mentioned on the death certificate, suggest the true death toll is 4,301.

703
Number of people in hospital with Covid-19
Scottish Government
There are now 703 people in hospital confirmed to have the virus as of Saturday, up by 28.

Of these patients, 62 were in intensive care – the same as the previous day.

Sunday’s test results were delayed due to a capacity issue in the UK Government Lighthouse facility in Glasgow.

A statement from the Scottish Government said: “We were notified late last week of a testing capacity issue with the UK Government Lighthouse facility in Glasgow.

We do expect to see an increase in the level of positives on Monday and Tuesday when the results are reported

Scottish Government spokeswoman
“This has meant around 64,000 tests from across the UK, including Scotland, will be rerouted this weekend (Friday-Sunday) to other testing sites in the UK and Northern Ireland, including tests from our physical testing sites, for example Regional Tests sites.

“It is important to note that the majority of these tests are still well within the 24 and 48-hour timeframe for results albeit we do expect to see an increase in the level of positives on Monday and Tuesday when the results are reported.

“The Scottish Government is urgently trying to establish with the UK Government what exactly is causing the delay in testing but this is mainly due to demand from out with Scotland.

“We continue to reroute routine testing of care home staff through NHS Scotland testing facilities to ensure prompt turnaround times.”

However, a UK Government spokeswoman denied there was any testing capacity issues, saying: “This claim is categorically untrue.

“There is no capacity issue at the UK Government’s Glasgow Lighthouse Lab.

“The Glasgow Lighthouse Lab is highly efficient, with the capacity to analyse tens of thousands of samples a day.

“Rerouting tests to other laboratories is a routine practice to ensure timely processing.”

 

Nearly eight months after launching the track and trace initiative - the stupid scumbag 'nasty party' now realise they they need a co-ordinator to run this failing system - a system that is run, not by the NHS per se, but private companies who have cocked this up big time from the start !!!


Test and trace: Ad seeks manager with experience of turning round ‘failing’ call centres, as Boris Johnson admits system must be improved
System records worst weekly contact figures since establishment in May

Andrew Woodcock@andywoodcock,Samuel Lovett@samueljlovett
1 day ago

There have been fresh calls for an overhaul of the government’s floundering test and trace service, after an advert was placed seeking a £2,000-a-day head of operations with experience of turning round “failing” call centres.

The job ad was posted online as the test and trace system in England recorded its lowest-ever contact figures and prime minister Boris Johnson admitted it needed improving.

But Department of Health chiefs scrambled to take it down and redraft it, insisting that its wording had not been requested or approved by the government.

It came amid growing clamour for test, trace and isolate operations to be transferred from a network of private companies under the leadership of Conservative peer Dido Harding and handed to established local council and NHS public health teams.

Official figures released on Thursday showed that in the week ending 14 October, the test and trace programme managed to get in touch with fewer than 60 per cent of people identified as close contacts of coronavirus patients, in order to tell them to self-isolate – well below the 80 per cent level needed for the system to be effective.

A total of 251,613 people in England were identified as coming into close contact with someone who had tested positive for Covid-19 – yet only 59.6 per cent were reached and asked to self-isolate

For cases handled by local health protection teams, 94.8 per cent of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate. But for cases processed online or by call centres by tracers recruited by private companies such as Serco, this figure was 57.6 per cent.

At a press conference No 10, Mr Johnson insisted that the achievement of NHS Test and Trace in ramping up tests from 2,000 a day in the spring to 300,000 now was “colossal”, and insisted the system remained on track to meet its target of 500,000 by the end of this month.

But challenged over the new figures, he said: “I share people’s frustrations and I understand totally why we do need to see faster turnaround times and do need to improve it.”

The PM’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said that, while numbers of tests were being increased, shortcomings in the process of reaching contacts and getting them to self-isolate was “diminishing the effectiveness” of the system.

Prof Vallance said that it was “undoubtedly the case” that test, trace and isolate systems have less of an impact as numbers of infections in the community get higher.

He added: “I think the testing system has ramped up the numbers they are able to do quite effectively, but it's really important to concentrate on numbers of contacts, isolation as quickly as you can and getting things back as quickly as you can – ideally, to get the whole process done within 48 hours.
“It’s very clear there’s room for improvement on all of that and therefore that will be diminishing the effectiveness of this.”

Professor James Naismith, the director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute, said the latest figures showed “a system struggling to make any difference to the epidemic”.

Prof Naismith raised concern over figures showing that 70 per cent of contacts identified by people testing positive were in their own households, suggesting “a tick box system rather than a proper tracing”. To be effective, the system should be reaching contacts from outside the household who may not know they have been exposed to possible infection, he said.

“The system has given a bird’s eye view of the pandemic and done very little to halt it,” said Prof Naismith. “It is for politicians to decide what to do about this.

“I would caution that new faces or more effort may sound attractive. However, getting an effective system over the summer was much easier than doing so now. It is not enough to say ‘we will work harder’ or ‘I alone can fix it’. If the system is to be made effective – and I have my doubts if this now possible – it will need a clear set of plans that explain what changes are being made and how these will fill in the holes that I and many others have spelt out.”

Since its establishment in May, there have been floods of stories of NHS Test and Trace contact tracers being given little to do, with staff saying that they made very few calls and often did little more than leave answerphone messages for the people they were supposed to be advising to self-isolate for 14 days.

Meanwhile, The Independent has revealed that the testing service has been forced to draft in untrained staff to carry out clinical assessments of patients infected with coroanvirus.

Leaked emails showed that, as of Wednesday, staff from outsourcing firms Serco and Sitel who have no clinical training will be working alongside nurses and clinical staff to help assess and contract trace approximately 20,000 cases each day.

The advert placed by recruitment agency Quast on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care said the government was seeking a “very experienced and senior” person to deliver trace operations.

Running on business networking website LinkedIn, it said candidates must have “experience in running call centres of 18,000” and “experience (and evidence) of turning around failing call centres” and “quick wins”.

With pay of up to £2,000 a day on a contract running until the end of March, the new VP of operations would be working remotely and needs to be able to join the team and implement improvements “straight away”.

Liberal Democrat health spokesperson Munira Wilson said: "If only the secretary of state was as honest about the tracing system as this job advert was. This is a damning indictment of the department and will raise further questions about the government's handling of the pandemic.

"It's time Matt Hancock admitted that the test and trace system needs overhauling. Local authorities are best placed to improve the struggling test and trace system and the government must urgently must give them the funding to do so."

But a DHSC spokesperson said: “The text for this advert was not drafted or approved by the department. As part of our ongoing commitment to improve services we are recruiting experienced employees with a wide range of experience including driving high performance.

“To date, with the help of NHS Test and Trace call handlers, the service has contacted over one million people who may have been at risk of unwittingly spreading the virus.”

The new figures showed that test results were received within 24 hours by just 15.1 per cent of people who were tested for Covid-19 at a regional site, local site or mobile testing unit – down from 32.8 per cent in the previous week and the lowest weekly percentage since test and trace began.

Mr Johnson said as long ago as June that he wanted 100 per cent of in-person tests returned within 24 hours.

The data also showed the proportion of tests returning a positive result has climbed to 7.1 per cent for the week, the highest since test and trace began.

According to the World Health Organisation, a positivity rate of more than 5 per cent is an indication of insufficient testing being conducted.

A total of 101,494 people tested positive for Covid-19 in England at least once in the week to 14 October – a rise of 12 per cent in positive cases on the previous week.

And of 96,521 people transferred to the system, 80.7 per cent were reached and asked to provide details of recent close contacts.

Baroness Harding said that “strengthening” the programme’s partnerships with local public health teams would help to improve the speed at which people are traced and contacted in their communities.

“Reducing turnaround times is our absolute priority to make sure we are reaching people as soon as possible,” she said.

“We always need to balance ensuring as many people as possible can get a test alongside ensuring test results are delivered as quickly as possible, and as capacity continues to grow at pace, we expect to see improvements.”

 

This is never going to get better .
Most people will not answer a 0300 number
Paper filled forms will be fewer now as less pubs are opened
People will be reluctant to give correct details as there have been reports of these ending up with marketing companies as reported in the Times
People will not want to isolate due to loss of pay and the problem of getting food and supplies .

All this is heavily stacked against Test and Trace .

 

Another private company cock-up !!! - the scumbag 'nasty party' keep insisting its the NHS, whereas in fact, it is private companies acting, allegedly on behalf of the NHS.


NHS Covid App Failed To Contact Thousands Due To Software Error
Users of Android devices have reportedly been among the worst hit.

• 
  By Léonie Chao-Fong

A software setting error in the NHS Covid app has meant thousands of people were not told to self-isolate after they came into people infected with the coronavirus.

Software developers behind the app have admitted its algorithm has since been updated – weeks after it was first released on Sep 24. The app has been downloaded by more than 19 million people in England and Wales.


It uses Bluetooth signals to track who an individual comes into close contact with and sends an alert to those people if they become infected with Covid-19.

But on Thursday developers behind the app said an update to the “risk threshold” had been made to take into the account the element of “infectiousness”.

“The ‘risk threshold’ was due to be lowered, but this change did not take place at that time,” wrote Randeep Sidhu and Gaby Appleton in a blog post.

“The updated version of the app addresses this by lowering the threshold at which users are deemed to be at risk of having caught the virus and alerted to self-isolate.

“The update to the risk threshold is expected to increase the number of people asked to self-isolate by the app, having been in close contact with someone who has tested positive.”

The result of this software setting means users who should have received an alert telling them to self-isolate were not contacted, according to The Times.

The paper quoted a source saying “shockingly low” numbers of users had been sent warnings, and that users of Android devices were among the worst hit.

The smartphone app has experienced technical issues since its launch after months of setbacks.

In October the government was forced to upgrade the app after users received alert messages suggesting they had been exposed to the virus.

In many cases, the so-called “ghost notification” would simply disappear once clicked on and was not followed by any official confirmation of contact with others who carry coronavirus.

“This was confusing for app users who would receive a ‘possible exposure’ message,” Sidhu and Appleton admitted in the same post.

“We recognise this is still an inconvenience and cause for concern for some app users.”

A DHSC spokesperson said: “The NHS Covid-19 app is the only app in the world using the latest Google/Apple technology to better gauge distance to identify those most at risk, and is deemed ‘excellent’ by international standards.”

 

Its more than time for Boris to sack this incompetent woman !!!


NHS Test and Trace reaches lowest ever proportion of contacts

PA
Nov 5th 2020 6:48AM
The NHS Test and Trace system has reached the lowest ever proportion of contacts of people who tested positive for Covid-19 in England.

Four in 10 close contacts of people who tested positive are still not being reached by the system, at the same time as it recorded its highest weekly number of positive cases.

A total of 137,180 people tested positive for Covid-19 in England at least once in the week to October 28 – an increase of 8% on the previous week and the highest weekly number since Test and Trace was launched at the end of May.

According to the latest figures, 59.9% of close contacts of people who tested positive in England were reached through the system in the week ending October 28.

Contacts reached and asked to self-isolate in week to Oct 28

• 97.9% for local health protection teams
• 58.5% of cases managed online or by call centres

This is the lowest since Test and Trace began and is down from 60.6% for the previous week.
For cases managed by local health protection teams, 97.9% of contacts were reached and asked to self-isolate in the week to October 28.

For cases managed online or by call centres, the figure was 58.5%.

Just 26.4% of people who were tested in England in the week ending October 28 at a regional site, local site or mobile testing unit – a so-called "in-person" test – received their result within 24 hours.

This is up from 22.6% in the previous week.



Prime Minister Boris Johnson had pledged that, by the end of June, the results of all in-person tests would be back within 24 hours.

He told the House of Commons on June 3 that he would get "all tests turned around within 24 hours by the end of June, except for difficulties with postal tests or insuperable problems like that".


(PA Graphics)
Before the new figures were published, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said the month-long lockdown that began in England on Thursday will be used to "redouble our efforts" to expand the NHS Test and Trace programme.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said it is also vital to increase the speed at which test results are returned.

"Lots of people are receiving them the next day which is good, but there are still too many people who are having to wait for days and we are going to continue to work to speed that up," he said.

"We've got to use this time not only to deal with Test and Trace but also to prepare for when we get a vaccine."

He said any future vaccination programme would prioritise those in greatest need "so we can avoid a stop and start scenario where we're having to go in and out of lockdowns".

 

It gets better doesn't it ?

 

This is how bad it gets, a few weeks ago they had a Covid outbreak at the hospital where my wife works, 3 people in the office where she works went down with it, the rest were told to self isolate and work from home, I had to obviously isolate too since I live with my wife, or thats what I was told, incidentally she had no symptoms but was also refused a test! Two weeks later they all go back to work, the office hasn't had a deep clean and life goes on as normal, well as normal as it can be, then less than two weeks later it starts again, a porter and three women out of the office go off with confirmed Covid! The wife is told to isolate and see if she develops symptoms, this time I get told I don't need to isolate, she requests a test and is again refused, I'm starting to get annoyed at this point.
Anyway they set up this online page where the girls can chat together and keep each other updated, eventually only one other woman and my wife haven't got it and then her boss rings up, apparently my wife can go back in on Monday, she's an essential worker and the department cannot operate without her, apparently she was never at risk because she's in her own office.
At this point I go mental and start having a go, I inform her boss via the online group chat that under various regulations my wife's office is an annexe of the main office, not a seperate office as the sole method of entry and egress is via the main office, I also inform her that any case of Covid contracted at work is notifiable to the HSE under RIDDOR, has she informed them about the last outbreak? Apparently not, she informed her bosses at the main hospital and that was it, did she inform the HSE of the first outbreak? Predictably again the answer is no, with great delight I then inform her that it is her responsibility nobody else's to inform the HSE, she has failed to do this twice, so has commited two offences under HSE legislation and she is personally responsible, god help her if fatality occurs.I'm really getting into the swing of it now as I hate people who try and bluff and bullshit, I then iform her that the office needs a proper deepclean and advise all the girls not to return until it is done, they agree.
On Sunday she rings back telling my wife not to go to work on monday, she's organising a deep clean and will let her know when it's been sorted, Monday afternoon we get a call, the office has been deep cleaned, she has to go back on Tuesday, she goes back and discovers the office has not had a deepclean, the main hospital says it's not required as they believe the infection was picked up outside work, figure that out if you can.
The wife and her other colleague, the only two uninfected demand a Covid test which is done that afternoon both are told to carry on as normal, my wife gets her result by text at 7am this morning, she's clear. Her mate doesn't get her results until 10 am when they are both in work, by now my wife has taken to wearing full PPE at all times and will not allow anyone else into her office, it's a good job too, because the other woman's result comes back positive, she gets sent home.
The whole system is corrupt, the infection control team is run by the local NHS trust (badly) PHE (public health England) is a part of the same group and each one is covering the others arses and doing as little as possible to protect staff because it could affect the running of the hospitals.
This is only a small community hospital and they only have one small break room for the whole hospital, when I pointed out that ward staff dealing with Covid patients should not be mixing with other staff inthe break room they opened a small office opposite, they could use that, the fact that they still have to enter the break room to make a drink or use the microwave was lost on them, clearly they have no concept of cross contamination or infection control.
Anyway I have warned them, I know of multiple breaches of building regulations, fire regulations and Health and safety regulations, so it's like this, they either start sorting things out or I will shut the hospital, and believe me it won't be an office or two for a few days, it will be the whole site for several months, lets see how they like that!