Baroness Harding, a previous chief executive of TalkTalk, who previously held senior roles at supermarkets Sainsbury’s and Tesco, did not draw a government salary for her role at NHS Test and Trace. Earlier this year, she applied to become chief executive of the health service, but was ruled out several weeks before Amanda Pritchard, the current NHS deputy, was appointed to the top job.
The Test and Trace programme is now run by the UK Health Security Agency, launched in April, led by Dame Jenny Harries, the former deputy chief medical officer.
Last night, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: “Test and Trace was supposed to be ‘world beating’ saving us from repeated from lockdowns. Instead we’ve seen fat cat salaries for bosses, haphazard contact tracing and strains on testing.
“This is taxpayers’ money and at a time when the NHS is struggling and staff want a fair pay deal, ministers must explain why they signed off these bumper pay cheques.”
Latest figures show, 597,260 people ordered to self-isolate by NHS Test and Trace in the week ending July 21, the highest figure since January, with 678,102 people “pinged” by the app.
Rising numbers of people testing positive for Covid are refusing to hand over details of close contacts. The most recent figures show almost one quarter of people testing positive would not provide details of any recent close contacts.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “This year more than ever the department needed to attract, recruit and retain highly skilled individuals, both permanently and temporarily, to respond to the unprecedented demands created by Covid-19.
“We have drawn upon the highest-standard of expertise in dealing with this global public health crisis. This has resulted in the largest diagnostics network in UK history through an NHS Test and Trace system which can identify and cut transmission rates – protecting people’s health, saving lives and helping to stop the spread of the virus.”
