Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 7
7
We asked our witnesses whether these figures meant that NHST&T had been given an unrealistic...
Conclusion
We asked our witnesses whether these figures meant that NHST&T had been given an unrealistic objective at the outset. The former head of NHST&T told us that it alone could not prevent a lockdown and that it was one of four main tools the Government used to tackle COVID-19. They explained that the other tools available were non-pharmaceutical interventions such as restrictions on movements and social interactions, the government’s vaccine programme, and therapeutic treatments for people with the disease. They also asserted that NHST&T was “never set up to be the single solution to COVID”.11 We therefore asked whether this meant that other tools had failed in their objectives. The Department explained that the balance between these tools had shifted throughout the pandemic and that its focus going forwards would be more towards vaccines and therapeutic treatments. It told us that NHST&T did not have a specific role as this had evolved over the course of the pandemic.12
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
1.2 The government does not accept the Committee’s conclusion that NHS Test and Trace had not helped to break chains of transmission nor enabled people to return to a more normal way of life. In September 2021, the government published the Canna Model which estimates that, since August 2020, the transmission reduction from test, trace and self-isolation varied over time from 10% to 28%. In its COVID-19 Response: Summer 2021, the government set out how continued take-up and compliance with the test, trace and isolate system would be essential to supporting the country in living with the virus through autumn and winter, and in its COVID-19 Response: Autumn and Winter Plan 2021 confirmed that the test, trace and isolate system is reducing the number of positive cases mixing in the community.