Test and Trace failed in its ‘main objective’, highly-critical report finds
NHS Test and Trace has failed to achieve its “main objective” of helping break chains of COVID transmission and allowing people to return to normality despite being given an “eye-watering” amount of money, a highly-critical report from MPs has said.
According to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the programme’s outcomes have been “muddled” and a number of its goals have been “overstated or not achieved”.
Test and Trace was developed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to test the public and trace the contacts of positive coronavirus cases.
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March – MPs: ‘No clear evidence’ Test and Trace works
But its performance has been criticised in the past, including by the PAC.
The MPs said in an initial report in March that despite having access to “unimaginable resources”, Test and Trace could not produce “clear evidence” it had reduced the spread of the virus.
Since the virus emerged, Test and Trace has been given £37bn – a sum equivalent to 20% of the entire annual budget of the NHS.
This is a particular focus of the committee’s second report into Test and Trace, with the MPs saying that the programme’s “continued over-reliance on consultants is likely to cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds”.
The report says Test and Trace has failed to reduce its reliance on expensive contractors, who are paid an average of £1,100 per day.
The MPs also bemoan the fact that there is yet to be a “flexible” approach to using laboratories, something that “risks wasting public money”.
According to the committee, Test and Trace has been focused on getting programmes up and running and “paid less attention to ensuring these programmes delivered the benefits they promised”.
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March: Minister says pandemic would have been ‘one heck of a lot worse’ without Test and Trace
Uptake of its services is described in the report as “variable” and “only a minority of people experiencing COVID-19 symptoms get a test”, with some vulnerable people much less likely to take a COVID test than others.
Test and Trace is due to be moved into the new UK Health Security Agency, a development the MPs say should be used to set out a proper long-term strategy” for the programme.
Dame Meg Hillier, chair of the committee, said: “The national Test and Trace programme was allocated eye-watering sums of taxpayers’ money in the midst of a global health and economic crisis.
“It set out bold ambitions but has failed to achieve them despite the vast sums thrown at it.
“Only 14% of 691 million lateral flow tests sent out had results reported, and who knows how many took the necessary action based on the results they got, or how many were never used.
“The continued reliance on the over-priced consultants who ‘delivered’ this state of affairs will by itself cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds.
“For this huge amount of money we need to see a legacy system ready to deliver when needed but it’s just not clear what there will be to show in the long term.
“This legacy has to be a focus for the government if we are to see any value for the money spent.”
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February: Serco boss defends role in Test and Trace rollout
Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, said Test and Trace had “played an essential role in combating this pandemic”.
“As the Public Accounts Committee acknowledges, there have been improvements in testing capacity, turnaround times and speed and reach of contact tracing – and improved collaboration with local authorities,” she said.
“The fact is NHSTT is saving lives every single day and helping us fight COVID-19 by breaking chains of transmission and spotting outbreaks wherever they exist.
“More than 323 million tests have now been carried out across the UK. NHSTT has now contacted more than 19.9 million people, helping to slow the spread of the virus.
“Testing, contact tracing and the wall of defence built by our vaccination programme are all fundamental to our ongoing efforts to keep people safe as we return to a more normal way of life.”
A government spokesperson said: “We have rightly drawn on the extensive expertise of a number of public and private sector partners who have been invaluable in helping us tackle the virus.
“We have built a testing network from scratch that can process millions of tests a day – more than any European country – providing a free LFD or PCR test to anybody who needs one.
“The new UK Health Security Agency will consolidate the knowledge that now exists across our health system to help us tackle future pandemics and threats.”
A judo Olympian has said her family is “devastated” after the discovery of body in the search for her missing brother.
Lubjana Piovesana, 28, appealed for help to find her younger sibling, Luis, 26, on Saturday. He had not been seen since the early hours of Friday morning.
A body was found in the River Frome near Napier Road in Eastville, Bristol, at around 6pm today, Avon and Somerset Police said.
Formal identification is yet to take place, the force added.
In a post on Instagram, Ms Piovesana wrote: “Hello everyone, Luis has been found.
“We are completely devastated but he has passed away.
“I am grateful for everyone’s support. And I am so sorry this happened.
“Luis was my little brother and loved by everyone. I wish he could have seen the love from everyone. He will be remembered by us all.”
The post was signed off with a dove emoji.
Luis Piovesana did not have any money or his mobile phone with him when he went missing, police said. Pics: Avon & Somerset Police
Mr Piovesana was last seen at around 3am on Friday at the Eastgate retail park, which is less than a 10-minute walk away from where the body was found.
He had travelled there by taxi from a venue in Little Ann Street, St Jude’s, a 10-minute drive away.
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The 26-year-old’s family spent the weekend searching for him, and asked people to check their sheds and gardens.
His partner, Laurin Bohler, said loved ones had travelled from Birmingham to help.
Mounted officers and police drones were also involved in the investigation.
Ms Piovesana competed for Team GB before switching to the Austrian team, and defeated British competitor Lucy Renshall in the women’s -63kg judo event at the Paris Olympics last year.
A man has been jailed for life for murdering his son’s girlfriend after she returned home from the school run.
Officers from Dyfed-Powys Police were called to an address on Bigyn Road in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, on 5 July last year.
Sophie Evans, 30, had sustained 72 separate injuries on the outside of the body, “all but three of them new injuries”.
Richard Jones, who is now 50, believed he was “being taken advantage of financially” by Ms Evans and his son, with whom she was in a relationship.
While the purpose of Jones’s visit was “purely normal”, he confronted her on that morning about his suspicions and Ms Evans’s reaction was such that Jones “lost [his] temper”.
He subjected Ms Evans to “gross violence” before ultimately strangling her and leaving the property to run errands, including ordering a new bank card and buying pastries from a bakery.
Richard Jones. Pic: Dyfed-Powys Police
‘Last time on their school run’
During sentencing on Monday, the defendant kept his head bowed for most of the hearing.
He will have to serve at least 20 years behind bars before he can be considered for release by the parole board.
Swansea Crown Court heard Ms Evans was the mother of two young children.
Passing his sentence, Judge Geraint Walters said Ms Evans “had just taken her two children for the last time on their school run” prior to the attack.
“She wasn’t to know that when she parted company with them that morning,” he added.
The court heard the Jones believed he was being defrauded by Ms Evans and his son.
“There is clear evidence, that in the days leading up to this, that you had begun harbouring thoughts that Sophie Evans and your own son were in fact financially scamming you,” he said.
“What precisely brought about that view is difficult to determine.”
Judge Walters said Jones “lost [his] temper when [he] didn’t get the answer that [he] thought [he] deserved”.
He added that, having lost his temper, the defendant “subjected [Ms Evans] to gross violence over a period of time, before you ultimately extinguished her life by strangulation”.
The court was told in evidence that at the time of the attack, Ms Evans was wearing only a bath towel.
‘The rock of our family’
In a victim personal statement, Ms Evans’s sister Kerry Quinlan told the court she was “the rock of our family”.
She said Ms Evans was taken from them in a “senseless and cruel act”.
“Words cannot express fully how much of a loss this has been to her children,” she added.
“When they cry themselves to sleep wanting their mum, she isn’t there and never will be.”
Ms Quinlan added that Jones had “taken everything from us, all in the most despicable way possible”.
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Ms Evans’s partner at the time, and the defendant’s son, Jamie Davies, said in a victim personal statement, read on his behalf, that they had both “trusted” Jones, and that Ms Evans had even been planning the defendant’s 50th birthday.
“The thought of having to live my life without Sophie causes me extreme pain and heartache,” he added.
Prosecuting, Michael Jones KC said the offence was aggravated by the defendant’s previous convictions and the fact Ms Evans was murdered in her home.
In mitigation, David Elias KC said there was a “lack of premeditation”.
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