England’s Covid test and trace spending over £1m a day on consultants

[Northerner]

England’s flagship test-and-trace service is still spending more than £1m a day on private consultants, official figures reveal weeks after MPs lambasted it as an “eye-watering” waste of taxpayers’ money that is failing to cut Covid infection levels.

Dr Jenny Harries, the chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), who is responsible for NHS test and trace, told MPs in July there was a “very detailed ramp-down plan” to cut the number of consultants.

But latest figures show that at the end of October it employed 1,230 consultants. Test and trace has average daily contractor rates of £1,100, potentially equating to £1,353,000 a day. The ratio of consultants to civil servants in NHS test and trace in September was 1:1, separate data shows, despite a target set a year ago to reduce the ratio to 60%.

At the same time, new contracts worth millions of pounds are still being awarded to private consultancy firms, the Guardian has found, despite repeated pledges to curb their use.

England’s Covid test and trace spending over £1m a day on consultants

Exclusive: revelations follow MPs’ criticism of flagship service as ‘eye-watering’ waste of taxpayers’ money

www.theguardian.com

Total waste of money

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

£1,100 a day. On average.

A day!

Best part of £140 an hour.

Jeepers.

 

[mikeyB]

Plus the fact that test-and-trace system was totally incompetent and a waste of money in England. Might as well have just flushed £37 billion down the toilet.

Scotland didn’t need consultants for their test and trace, they used professionals in community health and the usual workers therein to do it, and regularly the press reported outbreaks starting in specific events, gatherings, or pubs. Still are doing it, because that is their job.

Incidentally, £37 billion is rather more than Scotland annually gets under the Barnett formula from the UK government, which itself is rather less than travels the other way.

 

[Zoombie]

Criminal…

 

[nonethewiser]

Mess from start like everything else govn implements, bit like shambolic speech Boris give to CBI other day.

 

[mikeyB]

Shambolic? I thought it was educational- the CBI, like me, now know that there is such a thing as Peppa Pig World. I expect the boss of Peppa Pig World will get a peerage soon.