Coronavirus test and trace system ‘creating false sense of security’

Ministers have been accused of creating a “false sense of security” by launching a test and trace system that is not yet capable of controlling local outbreaks.

A series of concerns have been raised over the gaps in the system launched last week, with local health chiefs warning that they have not been given the time, powers or data to prepare for outbreaks in their area. They said that they were given details of their roles just four working days before Matt Hancock, the health secretary, launched test and trace last week.

Boris Johnson said a “world-beating” operation would be in place by June. However, those involved in ongoing attempts to set up a system to target local outbreaks told the Observer that launching too soon risked giving the wrong message to the public. They said a comprehensive system was weeks away. “Doing it all too early risks giving people a false sense of security,” said one senior local government figure.

City leaders say they have not been given the powers to enforce local lockdowns, while they fear low-income workers have not been given the financial support to self-isolate when instructed to do so. Delays in test results, the absence of an app and the problem of people ignoring lockdown rules after the Dominic Cummings affair have also been raised. “Everybody’s going to very quickly throw that back at you,” one council boss said.

Local authorities are drawing up tailored proposals to snuff out any outbreaks in settings such as schools, care homes, factories and hostels. However, in many cases the plans are weeks away from completion, while extra resources may yet be needed. A £300m fund to help the local plans is being handed out from this week. “Promises have been made to the general public about there being a test and trace operation at the moment when it’s really only a skeleton service,” said one council leader.

However, Whitehall insiders insisted that the government had been talking to local government for months about the pandemic, and that councils already had pandemic plans they could draw upon. They also said that the powers for local lockdowns lay with the central government, which would use them if needed.

Judith Blake, leader of Leeds city council, said: “The government still hasn’t adequately addressed the need to make sure that everyone has the financial ability to self-isolate, should they be contacted and asked to do so.”

Nick Rushton, leader of Tory-run Leicestershire county council, said councils needed more powers. “If they want us to politically lead it, they’ve got to give some political leadership powers,” he said. Richard Watts, leader of Islington council in London, said: “The government needs to be completely frank and honest with people about how much of this system is actually working in reality. We aren’t going to have a fully established test and trace system until the end of the month, assuming it all goes to schedule.”

It comes after people employed to run the national test and trace system complained of glitches. One retired nurse said that throughout the first shifts on Thursday and Friday no cases reached her screen. Another tracer told the Observer her three-minute interview for the job included asking her if she owned a computer: “It was obvious [in training] that some of the people were not capable of doing this simple job. The trainer would often respond to questions with ‘I don’t know, I only started this job yesterday myself.’” She tried to quit, but had no line manager to give her resignation to.

The website the tracers use crashed on launch day. Some complained they couldn’t log in. Others felt they’d had too little training to deal with the sensitive matter of informing someone they might have a life-threatening disease. And plenty have asked why the launch date was arbitrarily brought forward – with just a few hours’ notice – from 1 June to last Thursday, the day after Cummings was ruled by Durham police to have potentially broken the lockdown rules.

“The UK doesn’t have a world-beating covid test and trace system in place,” said Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers. “There has been recent progress but we’re a long way behind South Korea, Australia and Germany – we’re mid-table at best. We should have been thinking about testing and tracing from the very beginning.

“It was only in early May that a proper plan started to take shape. Setting up a test and trace system in a few weeks was always going to be impossible, although the central government team led by Dido Harding are working effectively at high speed.”

Harding, the former TalkTalk chief executive, and her team created a plan to hire 7,000 doctors and nurses to be “tier 2” clinical contact tracers, collecting lists of contacts. The lists would be passed on to 18,000 lay “tier 3” contact tracers, who would speak to those who may have contracted the disease. The hardest cases would be reserved for “tier 1” tracers – the seasoned Public Health England (PHE) local authority contact tracers.

Professor Sir Chris Ham, the former chief executive of health thinktank the King’s Fund, said Harding inherited a badly designed system, with testing run by the Department of Health and contact tracing by PHE. “Testing and tracing have to go hand in hand. The original intention was to be run centrally without involving public health directors and councils whose local knowledge and experience intelligence is absolutely vital. That amazes mey.”

The department of health and social care said: “We have successfully launched NHS Test and Trace to help us keep this virus under control and save lives, while carefully and safely lifting the lockdown nationally. All local councils already have plans in place to respond to Covid-19. To support the rollout of NHS Test and Trace, we asked every council to extend their existing plans into dedicated local outbreak plans by the end of June.

“Last week we gave £300m new, dedicated funding to support councils to do all they can to make Test and Trace a success.”