© Thomson ReutersA member of NHS Test and Trace staff gives people a testing kit as they arrive at a mobile testing centre amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Southport, Britain, February 3, 2021. REUTERS/Phil Noble
The Test and Trace scheme has failed to prove its effectiveness in battling infection rates despite "unimaginable" costs to the taxpayer, a powerful Commons committee has said.
MPs said the public "cannot be treated by Government like an ATM machine" for the programme, which has been allocated £37 billion over two years.
In a damning report published today, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said the Department of Health and Social Care justified pouring vast sums into the scheme last year on the basis it would prevent a second national lockdown.
But as the country begins to emerge from a third lockdown, the MPs said there was "no clear evidence" to judge the scheme's overall effectiveness.
And they warned that "it's not clear whether its contribution to reducing infection levels - as opposed to the other measures introduced to tackle the pandemic - can justify its costs".
© GettyTest and Trace boss Baroness Dido Harding has faced criticism over the rollout of the scheme
Rishi Sunak announced an additional £15 billion for Test and Trace in last week's Budget, taking the total bill to more than £37 billion over two years.
PAC chair Meg Hillier said the eye-watering sum exceeds the entire annual budget for the Department for Transport and questioned the scheme's reliance on expensive private consultants at £1,000 a day.
She said: "Yet despite the unimaginable resources thrown at this project Test and Trace cannot point to a measurable difference to the progress of the pandemic, and the promise on which this huge expense was justified - avoiding another lockdown - has been broken, twice.
"DHSC and NHS T&T must rapidly turn around these fortunes and begin to demonstrate the worth and value of this staggering investment of taxpayers' money.
"Not only is it essential it delivers an effective system as pupils return to school and more people return to their workplace, but for the billions spent we need to see a top class legacy system.
"British taxpayers cannot be treated by Government like an ATM machine."
© Leicester Mercury / Chris GordonNHS Test and Trace.
Labour's Rachel Reeves said the system had "failed the British people" and led the country into lockdown after lockdown.
The Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster added: "It underlines the epic amounts of waste and incompetence, an overreliance on management consultants, taxpayers' cash splashed on crony contracts, all while ministers insist our NHS heroes deserve nothing more than a clap and a pay cut.
"The Conservatives' wasteful obsession with outsourcing must end and contact tracing should be run by our public health teams."
Unison's head of health Sara Gorton said: "Billions have been frittered away. And existing public health contact-tracing expertise ignored.
"Recognising the immense effort of NHS staff during the pandemic would be a far better use of public money. It would cost a fraction too."
TUC General Secretary Frances O'Grady said the Government's refusal to provide decent sick pay had undermined the system.
© Getty ImagesBoris Johnson promised a
"No-one should be forced to choose between self-isolating and paying their bills," she said.
Boris Johnson promised a "world beating" test and trace system in May 2020, but the initial rollout of the programme was beset by difficulties.
Whitehall's spending watchdog warned in December that not enough test results were delivered within 24 hours, and too few contacts of infected people were being reached and told to self-isolate.
Some call handlers were also said to have been busy for only 1% of their paid hours in the service's early days, rising to less than 50% in October.
Baroness Dido Harding, Interim Executive Chair of the National Institute for Health Protection, said: "NHS Test and Trace is essential in our fight against COVID-19 and regular testing is a vital tool to stop transmission as we cautiously ease restrictions. Protecting communities and saving lives is always our first priority and every pound spent is contributing towards our efforts to keep people safe - with 80% of NHS Test and Trace's budget spent on buying and carrying out coronavirus tests.
"After building a testing system from scratch, we have now carried out over 83 million coronavirus tests - more than any other comparable European country - and yesterday alone we conducted over 1.5million tests. We are now rolling out regular rapid asymptomatic testing which is supporting children to go back to school, people to go to work and visitors to see their loved ones in care homes.
"NHS Test and Trace has successfully reached 93.6% of the contacts of positive cases - with 98% being contacted within 24 hours, and the contact tracing service has already reached more than 9.1 million cases and contacts, making a real impact in breaking chains of transmission."