COVID-19

Isn’t it the councils and local mayors that have been asking for the track and trace to be devolved to a local level rather than the government putting it on the councils?

 

Why haven't the sexual health/salmonella specialist and highly skilled trace team been doing it?

So are you saying that you doing it is better or worse? That you should be doing it or you shouldn't?

I honestly don't know which side of the fence I'm on with this one. It seems like the push is for the LA to do it but it equally doesn't sound like a simple thing to resource.

 

No

 

Andy Burnham was trying to get control of it over a month ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-54092397

 

We don't cover sexual health.
We're doing it better. Some contact tracers working for private companies have claimed they have been employed for months, but have only had a handful of cases to trace. There are 12 staff covering it where I work,. Unless we get more resources some of our normal work will have to wait. The Government have dished out millions to private companies for little return. That money should now be channelled to Local Authorities.

 

The Preston Council leader was asking for it a couple of days ago too.

https://theprestonhub.co.uk/2020/10/08/city-council-leader-wants-locally-led-approach-to-covid-testing-and-track-trace/

 

Thank you for your answers.

Fair enough I was just going by the post from @Offcomedun about the sexual health people.

They definitely overresourced it when they started off with the central approach but now it seem from what you're saying that the LAs don't have enough people anyway. Definitely need to step up the recruitment if they're going to take more control.

Does sound better in that case but have you any more experience tracing people than the ones who have been doing it centrally?

 

We deal with people daily on a one to one basis, so don't need to be trained on how to talk to them and get the required responses.

 

Also fair enough, appreciate your answer again.

Still don't know where I sit on it to be honest. Doesn't sound like the highly specialist and easily resourced teams that were being portrayed but if the people closest to it feel it's the best way to do it then I guess that's how it should be.

Definitely going to need a lot more resources though and quickly.

 

Good article today. Including some explanation of why local knowledge is important.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/13/what-has-gone-wrong-with-englands-covid-test-and-trace-system?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

 

Ta. I'll have a look through but just so you know I trust the guardian and a source even less than I trust the mail! Hate both of their styles of journalism.

Although to be fair it's a decent list of the issues @Offcomedun even if some of them lack context and none of them provide solution.

It does give that one example of why local knowledge is important but I wasn't doubting that being local was an advantage, I was doubting whether the existing LA teams were scalable and full of specialist experts enough to make a centralised aspect not required.

 

I can’t this shit is still being discussed and fathomed out now. All them lockdown months, wasted.

 

Start by closing the Universities for this term and sending students home, Most of the problems are in large university cities like Leeds that has 100,000 students,

 

It appears talks are taking place to push Bradford into tier 3. With furlough coming to an end on the 31st October this would lay a massive economic waste to the City. The problem is the people make these decision are Civil Servants in guarnteed jobs. If we move into Tier 3 I fear there would be no escape and many businesses will collapse.

 

I don't care that much. I was just asking the people who were saying it was the right way to go on here.

Thanks for the advice though.

 

No one is suggesting that the local authority teams could have done it as they stand. But the national system has been put together from scratch - tantamount to reinventing the wheel. If the government had spent half what they've spent on Dido Harding's shower of shite on upsizing the local expert teams I am certain we'd have had much better results. But their cronyism and ideological obsession with private sector 'efficiency' ruled out the glaringly obvious option. Only now are they accepting that local teams are better placed. In the meantime they've wasted precious summer months and billions of pounds on a 'world beating' system that isn't and set us off into the difficult winter period playing catch up to establish what should and could have been in place months ago.

 

Nail on head!

 

I don't particularly disagree with you to be honest. it just seems to me that the local terms were so small and in no meaningful ways "experts" that each local authority would be starting from scratch and reinventing the wheel as well so I don't see it as a major difference or a particularly obvious option.

By the same token I think there's some people (usually Guardian readers) who are vehemently opposed to any sort of private sector outsourcing and centralised systems but they are usually better than the local authorities at providing large scale projects. I'm not sure I'd be any more confident in the Bradford Local authority getting something absolutely right and efficient any more than the government. A combination of the two is usually the best way to go for me.

Off all the problems that are spelled out on the Guardian list how many would a local team solve? It certainly wouldn't solve the main issue with it which is right at the bottom of that article.....only 18% of people with symptoms stay at home! You could ask what the point is of any T&T system if over 80% of people WITH SYMPTOMS actually ignore it anyway?