COVID-19: Test, track and trace (part 1)

Test and trace programmes are a core public health response in epidemics that can be used with other measures such as social distancing, barriers (such as masks) and handwashing to reduce infections. The basic principles of test and trace are identifying individuals, or groups of individuals, with an infectious disease, and tracing their contacts to … Show more

Test and trace programmes are a core public health response in epidemics that can be used with other measures such as social distancing, barriers (such as masks) and handwashing to reduce infections. The basic principles of test and trace are identifying individuals, or groups of individuals, with an infectious disease, and tracing their contacts to limit further transmission. Through early identification, potentially infectious contacts can be encouraged or obliged to reduce interactions with other people, thereby reducing the spread of disease. The National Audit Office’s (NAO) first, interim report on test and trace finds that the government has rapidly scaled up COVID-19 testing and tracing from a low base, but is achieving too few test results delivered within 24 hours and too few contacts of infected people being reached and told to self-isolate. The Department of Health & Social Care (DHSC) rapidly increased testing capacity in England from April and launched the NHS Test and Trace Service (NHST&T) at the end of May to lead the overall test and trace programme. NHST&T’s budget for 2020-21 has grown over time and now stands at £22 billion. Of the £15 billion of funding confirmed before the November Spending Review, around £12.8 billion (85%) is assigned to testing and £1.3 billion to tracing. Much of the additional £7 billion budget allocated in the Spending Review will be needed for mass testing, which was formerly referred to as “Operation Moonshot”. Contracts worth £7 billion have been signed with 217 public and private organisations to provide supplies, services and infrastructure, including test laboratories and call handlers for tracing. NHST&T has plans to sign a further 154 contracts, worth £16.2 billion, by March 2021. In total, 70% of early contracts by value were directly awarded without competition under emergency measures that were in use across government. International comparisons show that outsourcing is a part of many testing systems but is unusual for tracing. A range of stakeholders have queried why the government did not involve local authorities more in its initial approach to tracing, given their previous experience in this area. The government did not document with a business case the basis for the delivery model it initially chose until September. A target to provide results within 24 hours of in-person testing in the community has not been met. Turnaround within 24 hours peaked in June at 93% but subsequently deteriorated to reach a low of 14% in mid-October before rising to 38% in early November. NHST&T did not plan for the sharp rise in testing demand in September when schools and universities reopened. Laboratories processing community swab tests were unable to keep pace with the volume of tests and experienced large backlogs, which meant NHST&T had to limit the number of tests available and commission extra help from other laboratories. Rationing of tests meant some people were told to visit test sites hundreds of miles away. It is important to get hold of people with COVID-19 or who might have been exposed to it quickly so they can self-isolate, but the service saw increases in the time taken to reach people between May and mid-October, before improvements in the last two weeks of October. At times, parts of the national tracing service have barely been used: in May, DHSC signed contracts for the provision of 3,000 health professionals and 18,000 call handlers. The call handler contracts were worth up to £720 million. By 17 June, the utilisation rate (the proportion of time that someone actively worked during their paid hours) was low for both health professional (4%) and call handler staff (1%), indicating that they had little work to do. This means substantial public resources have been spent on staff who provided minimal services in return. National and local government have tried to increase public engagement with tracing, but surveys suggest that the proportion of contacts fully complying with requests to self-isolate might range from 10% to 59%. NHST&T acknowledges that non-compliance poses a key risk to its success and has taken steps to increase levels of self-isolation, for example by making follow-up calls to people while they are self-isolating. For as long as compliance is low, the cost-effectiveness of NHST&T’s activities will inevitably be in doubt. The Committee will question senior officials and executives at DHSC and NHS Test & Trace. If you have evidence on the effectiveness and value for money of the UK’s test and trace programme to date, please submit it here by 6pm on Monday 11 January 2021. Show less