Responding to a National Audit Office interim report on the Government’s approach to test and trace in England, Cllr Ian Hudspeth, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Community Wellbeing Board, said:
“From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent launch of NHS Test and Trace, we have consistently called for councils and their directors of public health to be able to use their considerable expertise and unparalleled experience to play their full part in the national effort to beat this virus.
“Environmental health, emergency planners, trading standards and public health teams are among the council services which already had prior understanding about how to handle such outbreaks. What they needed from the outset from the national system was the necessary capacity, resources and precise data on who to reach, to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
“Councils across the country have since set up more than 200 local contact tracing partnerships, complementing the national effort by successfully tracing many hard-to-reach cases.
“As we battle to get through this winter and reduce transmission of the virus, it is essential that the Government enables these successful local schemes to be built on to address the current limitations of the national test and trace system.”
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