Contact tracers report feeling unready as system launches

Contact tracers in the government’s test and trace programme reported feeling untrained and unprepared on launch day, as the project’s chair admitted it would not be fully operational until the end of June.

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced on Wednesday that 25,000 newly trained staff would start on Thursday to call those diagnosed with coronavirus, tracing who they had come into close contact with over the past two weeks and asking them to self-isolate.

People hired as contact tracers told the Guardian, however, that the system was beset with technical difficulties and they had only done a few hours training. They said many employees felt unprepared for making calls to those who had been bereaved or who were refusing to cooperate.

Speaking to the Guardian on Thursday morning, contract tracers – both in clinical and more junior roles – reported being unable to log in to the systems. An email sent to clinical staff by the contact centre company Sitel said it was aware of login issues, which had been reported as a critical incident.

“Yesterday I got two emails with links to log on to the contract tracing system,” said one worker. “I tried to get in every 10 to 20 minutes up to midnight but it was not working. As of 8am [on Thursday] I still could not get in and had no response.”

The new recruits are all working from home in virtual call centres and using their own computer equipment. “My phone is also not working, the microphone isn’t connecting to the app,” one said. “It works for other applications on my phone. So it has gone off with great fanfare this morning but it is a sticking plaster, I think, to look as if it is being delivered.”

One man, working through Sitel, said he had been told the system would go live at midday, but at 11.15am, when he spoke to the Guardian, he still hadn’t been able to login to read the script for call handlers.

Contact tracers said that they and many of the their colleagues were feeling unprepared and panicked about the prospect of starting to make calls. Some have resorted to setting up support groups on Facebook and WhatsApp so they can help each other and pool their knowledge.

Dido Harding, the chair of NHS track and trace, told MPs that a fully integrated contract-tracing system able to handle 10,000 cases a day would not be up and running until the end of June, a month after the initial launch.

Related: Hancock: it is public's 'civic duty' to follow test-and-trace instructions in England

Not all of the 25,000 people who had been recruited had been fully trained, Lady Harding told a conference call with MPs. She said the system would stand and fall on being able to persuade people who had come into contact with an infected person to isolate.

Anybody identified as having spent 15 minutes or more at a distance of two metres or less of a person who tests positive in the previous two weeks is likely to be asked to self-isolate.

The Conservative peer also admitted that the process of integrating with local government and its teams of experienced contact tracers was yet to be completed.

Ben Bradshaw, the Labour MP for Exeter, said Harding’s statement was “clearly at variance with [the] promise made by Boris Johnson at prime minister’s questions last week to have a world-beating system in operation by 1 June”.He said Devon county council, one of 11 beacon areas identified by the government for extra funding last week, had been told it had until the end of June to put its contract-tracing plans in place.

“They’ve not been given any detail about how it’s supposed to link up, or how to enforce against people who don’t comply with requests to self-isolate. All they’ve been told is to have a plan in place by the end of June,” he said.Daisy Cooper, a Lib Dem MP who was on the call, said: “People want to return to work and school but only when it’s safe to do so; without systems properly in place to manage the virus, the government is pursuing a high-risk strategy.”

One contact tracer working via Sitel said he had been being paid £10 an hour for nearly two weeks, in which time he had done nothing but three hours of self-led online training. Another said he had been being paid for nearly three weeks and all he had done was join a four-hour online training session, along with 100 other people, and read through some guidance documents.

“I’m personally feeling OK because I’ve worked in a call centre before and I just need to read the script and I’ll be fine, but there a lot of people in the work [online] chat [group] who are panicking about taking phone calls from people who have been bereaved or who don’t want to cooperate,” he said.

One clinical worker said: “We have had lots of discussion on process information but nothing on consequences and responsibilities. But we are making decisions about whether someone should isolate or not.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “As with all large-scale operations of this kind, some staff did initially encounter issues logging on to their systems and these are rapidly being resolved.

“All contact tracers have received appropriate training and are following detailed procedures and scripts designed by the experts at Public Health England. They will also receive ongoing support for their role.”