The test and trace system is to ‘go local’ as the Government appears to have finally admitted that its ‘world beating’ national system simply isn’t up to the job.

On Monday this week, the Government’s Department of Health & Social Care announced the NHS Test and Trace programme will now provide local authorities across England with a dedicated team of contact tracers to ensure that as many people as possible are being reached.

Last week’s figures showed that thousands of people are still not being reached by the test and trace programme and the head of outsourcing company Serco, which employs over 10,000 of the tracers, admitted up to a fifth of contacts may be untraceable.

National call centres were struggling to reach contacts, with only 56 per cent of close contacts handled online or by call centres being reached and told to self-isolate to stop the spread of the virus.

In stark contrast, a local contact tracing system set up in Blackburn with Darwen Council had reached 90 per cent of the people the Government’s national system was failing to contact in an area with one of the worst COVID-19 infection rates.

It was clear from the beginning that this initiative should have been locally led and delivered, yet the Government ignored local councils which said this. As a result, we saw yet another multi-million pound contract awarded to the private sector, which once again couldn’t deliver what was needed.

Councils now need some of that Government funding to support this activity as they help clear up this mess. And it seems there will be 6,000 fewer tracers overall.

We need an inquiry now so that all levels of government can learn from the mistakes that have been made, and ensure they work together as effectively as possible to prevent further spread of the virus.