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Long past time for government to deliver reliable test and trace system

This afternoon, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care delivered a statement in the House of Commons about the technical glitch which saw approximately 16,000 cases of coronavirus going unreported last week.

In response, Danny Mortimer, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, recently said:

“While it is reassuring that the technical glitch affecting Test and Trace reporting has been identified and resolved, its impact on the further spread of the disease could be untold.

“The Prime Minister has said that this is a critical moment in our response to the second surge of coronavirus and so, this error could not have come at a worse time when there are still concerns about how people can access tests and how quickly they receive results.

“The NHS is doing everything it can to bring back patient services that had to be paused in the first wave while also seeing increased hospital admissions for those with coronavirus. It is doing this against many challenges including reduced capacity and staff burnout and ahead of what is expected to be a very difficult winter.

“Following a gruelling six months, nine out of ten NHS leaders we surveyed recently said they are concerned about the long-term impact that the pandemic will have on their frontline staff.

“Health and care workers, as well as the communities they serve, deserve a test and trace system that will support them to do their vital jobs but instead, they are being let down repeatedly. It is long past time for the Government and its contractors to get their house in order on this and we should be seeing improvements rather than uncovering further problems.”

 

Original article link: https://www.nhsconfed.org/news/2020/10/long-past-time-for-government-to-deliver-reliable-test-and-trace-system

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