UK

#Trace the Money!

 

May 26, 2025HubMP2012

Covid Action campaigners are calling on the UK Covid-19 Inquiry to find out where the billions allocated to the failed NHS Test and Trace went.

Why did the Government outsource Test and Trace, sidelining professional public health experts in local government? Was it ideological or just a way of increasing the private sector’s profits?

 In the early years of the pandemic, Baroness Dido Harding of Winscombe and Prof. Dame Jenny Harries led NHS Test and Trace. Both are giving evidence to the Inquiry on Wednesday 28th May.  Will they be asked who made the decision to outsource Test and Trace and where our money went?

 Private corporations with no relevant experience were handed billions yet failed to deliver a functional service, while their profits soared. It was an outsourced, centralised money pit, which gobbled up a staggering £36 billion of our money.

 There was no meaningful support for people self-isolating, meaning many people struggled to stay home and not go to work.

 Instead of using the expertise and local knowledge of long-established public health departments, the NHS Test and Trace app worked only for those with mobile phones, forced thousands of worried families to travel long distances to get tested, and soon became an irrelevance – more often switched off or its alerts ignored than recognised by the public as a key tool in preventing the spread of the Covid virus.

 For centuries Test, Trace and Isolate has been the bedrock of identifying and responding to infectious diseases. But this time the Government seems to have been more interested in technology than people; more interested in developing an app than saving lives. It ignored offers to provide mass testing in favour of turning to management consultants. It ignored warnings of asymptomatic transmission. As a consequence, thousands died.

 Covid is still with us, but this Government is as unprepared for the inevitable next pandemic as the last was. Testing is rare and tracing non-existent. The lack of testing means that there is little data to assess the real extent of Covid or whether more virulent and infectious variants are evolving.

“NHS Test and Trace is one of the many scandals of the Tory government’s handling of the Covid pandemic emergency,” Covid Action’s Sioux Vosper, whose father died from Covid in April 2020, said. “The Inquiry must get to the bottom of where all those billions went and ensure that lessons are learnt so that in the event of any future pandemics public health professionals are provided with the resources and support to implement an efficient and effective test and trace system which drives down transmission and saves lives.”

Covid Action supporters will be demonstrating outside the Covid Inquiry at Dorland House, London W2 6BU at 12.45pm on Wednesday 28th May with the slogan #Trace the Money!

COVID ACTION UK is a grassroots, activist campaign of individuals and affiliated labour and trade union organisations who came together in November 2020 to challenge the then UK government’s approach to the pandemic. Website: https://covidaction.uk/ Module 7 of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry’s Public Hearings is on Test, Trace and Isolate and runs from 12th-30th May 2025 at Dorland House, London W2 6BU.