Labour’s deputy leader has called on Health Secretary Matt Hancock to consider quitting over the “disgusting” technology blunder that saw 16,000 coronavirus cases missed by contact tracers.
Angela Rayner told Mr Hancock he should be “completely embarrassed” by the delay in the reporting of 15,841 COVID-19 infections in England between 25 September to 2 October.
With the details of the cases having not initially been passed to the NHS Test and Trace scheme – due to an error in the handling of data – the government has been forced to draft in extra contact tracers in an effort to try and track down the contacts of people whose positive tests went unreported.
Matt Hancock was told he should be ‘completely embarrassed’ Pic: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor
Mr Hancock has admitted that almost half of the nearly 16,000 people missed by the Test and Trace system have still not had their contacts traced.
Speaking to Sky News on Tuesday, Mrs Rayner said the health secretary “should be considering his position” over the IT problems, adding: “He’s had a multiple of failures ever since he took on the role.”
“In terms of the test, track and trace system, we were promised a world-leading one and yet, over the last couple of months, we’ve seen the system creaking and 16,000 of these tests were knocked off an Excel spreadsheet after spending £12bn on that investment,” she said.
“Of those 16,000, half of them were in the North West – I’m a North West MP, we’ve seen in Greater Manchester rises in the infection rate.
“If we can’t test and trace people, how are we supposed to keep on top of the virus?”
Mrs Rayner called on the government to “give us that world-leading test, track and trace system they promised”.
“By doing that, what they need to do is allow local authorities’ local tracing to happen instead of having a big multinational company look at it, who have obviously failed miserably,” she added.
“Can you imagine the outcry if a public body had done that and wasted all that money on an Excel spreadsheet that isn’t working?
“It’s disastrous for England and it’s been disastrous, in particular, for the North West when over half of those tests were the ones from that area.
“It’s disgusting and the government really needs to step up and start doing their job properly.”
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Speaking in the House of Commons on Monday, Mr Hancock said the technical problem with the system “that brings together” data from NHS test sites and tests processed by commercial firms “should never have happened”.
But he insisted the team had “acted swiftly to minimise its impact”.