[ad_1]
Amid claims that England’s crucial COVID-19 contact tracing scheme has failed, Sky News may reveal that the government has been paying a five-person team of management consultants £ 25,000 a day to work on that one. part of the system.
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) team helped plan the creation of the contact tracing systems.
They were only a fraction of the private sector consultants working on the test and trace system, yet they are believed to be among the most expensive.
Two team members were paid a daily rate of £ 7,360, while the remaining three were paid £ 4,160, although the consultancy gave the government a 10% discount for the work.
The revelation, based on confidential documents viewed by Sky News, underscores the scope of how much the government is paying for the work of individual high-flying executives in the system, which is supposed to help track the contacts of those who have contracted COVID-19.
There are around 40 BCG executives in total working on Test and Trace, with daily rates ranging from £ 2,400 to £ 7,360.
Individual consultants may not receive this full sum, but the company charges based on an individual’s time.
New figures released today by Test and Trace show that in the latest period for which data is available, the week to October 7, the proportion of contacts successfully reached in England dropped to 62.9%, the lowest since system creation.
The drop may be associated with data problems from a couple of weeks ago, when a spreadsheet error at Public Health England meant that around 16,000 cases weren’t quickly transmitted to the tracers.
Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
However, it does mean that the system is now well below the targets set by public health officials, who would like to see 80% of contacts reached.
Dr Layla McCay, Head of the NHS Confederation, said: “If the NHS is to continue to be able to cope with the additional challenges of winter, we will have to see a rapid and significant improvement in the test and trace system.” . or more draconian measures in even larger parts of the country. “
Shadow Health Secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: “Today, new figures show that only 62% of contacts were reached.
Labor’s Jonathan Ashworth claims taxpayer doesn’t get value for money
“That is equivalent to 81,000 unreached, circulating in society, even though they have been exposed to the virus.
“This is another record hit and we learned yesterday that consultants working at Test and Trace are being paid over £ 6,000 a day to run this failed service.
“In a single week, the government pays these senior consultants more than they pay an experienced nurse in a year.
“So can the secretary of state explain why such huge sums of money are being paid to consultants to run a service that is only getting worse?”
