Recommendation 37

The National Audit Office has stated that “to achieve value for money NHST&T must be able to demonstrate both that the interventions it delivers are effective in achieving its objective, and that the mix of interventions is the most cost-effective use of public resources.” After 18 months and many billions of pounds of taxpayers’ funds, there is hope that the UK now has a capacity for testing and tracing that is adequate. It is a bitter irony that this point may only have been reached at the point in which the vaccination programme makes testing less of a critical component than it was previously. (Paragraph 240) 130 Coronavirus: lessons learned to date