Reading Time: 5 minutes

DELAYS ON ACCESSING TESTS MEANS TRACING THE VIRUS IS HARDER AND TRANSMISSION MORE LIKELY

SERCO/DELOITTE RUN ‘LIGHTHOUSE’ PROGRAMME ADOPTED BY WELSH GOVERNMENT IN MAY SEES HUGE SUMS OF PUBLIC MONEY HANDED OVER TO OUTSOURCING FIRM

COLLAPSE IN TESTING CAPACITY LEADING TO SPIKE IN CASES WITH NHS WALES HAVING TO STEP IN

By SC Cook.

Welsh Government’s reliance on the UK’s privatised test and trace system has led to a collapse in capacity, leaving people unaware if they have Covid-19 and leading to new local lockdowns, the latest of which is in Rhondda Cynon Taf. 

One healthcare support worker from South Wales – who asked not to be named – told voice.wales that she had spent four days frantically trying to book a test for her grandchildren, including spending over an hour on the phone. 

“I had to miss work until the results came through, which were negative,” she said. “Also my daughter couldn’t attend her monthly in-patient crucial treatment for her multiple sclerosis…it was an absolute nightmare!”

Multiple reports came in yesterday of people unable to book tests despite several attempts, and as a result forced to isolate until they could get one.

Paul, a parent from Cardiff, said that he had been trying to book a test all day on Tuesday. “My son is 7 and attends primary school in east Cardiff. He woke today with a persistent cough,” he told us. 

“I have been trying to book a test via the government website since around 8:30am, but continually received the “service is very busy” screen… it’s a little concerning that we are barely a week into the new school term and its showing signs of significant strain.”

At around 8.30pm, 12 hours after continually trying, he managed to get a test for the following day. 

Earlier this year, the UK Conservative government decided to hand over public money to Deloitte and other private firms to help to set up the Lighthouse scheme, which is now run by the outsourcing companies Serco and Sitel. The contracts were awarded in May and ran out on 23rd August, but according to a report on the Open Democracy website, they were extended without due process just three days before the expiry date. 

Public money is now be going to private companies which are run for profit, in return for a service that is barely functional. Even though a Serco spokesperson told Open Democracy that its profit margins for Covid work were “lower than normal”, the company still registered a 53% rise in half-year trading profits, to £77.8 million, in early August. 

“I blame Serco for mismanagement and the government for not assuring that there were enough tests that was necessary,” said the healthcare assistant from South Wales, adding that she was “really annoyed that it was given out to a private company”

Welsh Government effectively bought into the scheme when it was launched in May. Figures from Welsh Government and PHW, released on 9 September, show that up until May, the Welsh NHS conducted the vast majority of tests in Wales. But the number carried out by the privatised Lighthouse scheme has risen to outstrip NHS testing, and throughout August regularly accounted for more than two thirds of total tests carried out. 

But the model has failed to deal with the rising demand for testing, especially in areas that have been desperate to ramp up test and trace in a bid to avoid another lockdown. 

In Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) on Friday, where cases have been rising steeply in the last two weeks, the council leader Andrew Morgan said that despite being able to carry out several hundred tests at local sites, Serco said they could only process 60 in their Lighthouse labs. This was because the UK health secretary Matt Hancock deliberately limited the number of tests sent in from different areas because capacity was so low. 

Despite working to secure extra tests though, the problems in Rhondda persisted into this week. Yesterday Morgan wrote of his ‘despair’ at the disastrous testing regime, saying that Serco run sites had run out of tests. 

In response to rumours yesterday that Public Health England will move to limit who can get a test, the council leader tweeted to Matt Hancock asking about the potential implications of such a move. 

“We can only trace those we know have been in contact with positive cases. The light house labs are now failing & we need more test capacity or else I can see another U.K. lockdown on the cards,” he wrote. 

A day later, on Wednesday 16th September, RCT went into a formal lockdown after the number of official cases reached 82.1 per 100,000, way above the rate at which restrictions are placed on foreign travel. 

The MS for Rhondda, Leanne Wood, told voice.wales that she believed the testing failures had contributed to the lockdown. “I have been overwhelmed with people getting in touch telling me they have symptoms but they are unable to get tested,” she said. “One of the purposes of community testing is for the authorities to have an understanding of where the virus is spreading so that people coming into contact with it can be isolated. Without a properly functioning test and trace system, cases will be missed and so spread is a risk.”

“The government was warned about the importance of test and trace and they had a small window of opportunity over the summer to get it right. It looks like the first test of this system has failed.”

The effectiveness of the lockdown is also has also been bought into question as pubs and schools are staying open while house visits are banned, even though clusters of cases have been traced back to pubs in the area. 

But the failure of the government in not laying the groundwork for an effective test and trace system, after a rise in demand as school’s re-opened and people were encouraged to go out and get back to work, has undoubtedly contributed to cases rising and lockdowns being imposed. 

The Labour MP for Walthamstow, Stella Creasy, has said that the problem is that multiple private firms have been subcontracting, meaning the system is completely disjointed and in chaos. This is the result of the Tory’s decision to override the NHS in a move some have said is an attempt to use the crisis to ramp up privatisation and the sell off of NHS services.

Questions now need to be asked of why Welsh government decided to roll back NHS Wales testing in favour of the Serco run system. The inefficiency of the private providers was clear from the first couple of months of operation. According to the Open Democracy report, it was found to be contacting less than half of the contacts of people testing positive in recent weeks, and costing over £900 for each person traced. 

This is not the first time the Welsh NHS has made moves towards privatisation. In May last year, the unions attacked plans by two health boards to sell off their hospital pharmacies. And earlier this year, voice.wales reported on the fact that the new CEO of Cwm Taff health board had a record of outsourcing services to the private sector. 

Only after the true scale of the problem became clear, and under intense pressure, did Health Minister Vaughan Gething announce on Sunday moves to more reliance on NHS Wales for testing. Effectively, they are being asked to mop up Serco’s failures when the situation has already spiralled out of control. No fines are expected to be levied against private firms who have overseen the shambolic approach.

But after saying there would be 5 extra NHS run mobile testing units on Wednesday, Gething still couldn’t rule out limiting tests in the future. “My officials are having to consider what to do if that were required.” he told BBC Wales. 

In the end the effect of the dysfunctional testing system simply means that the virus will spread more easily as people are deterred from getting tests in the first place or risk going out into the community with symptoms because they cannot easily book a test. 

1 Comments

  1. Pingback: The socialist case for Welsh independence – East of Eden

Comments are closed.