Fix privatised track and trace now!

Privatised test and trace is putting our loved ones at risk every day through its failures. The Covid Recovery Group of Conservative MPs have said that one of their guiding principles is that local and regional public health teams should be leading contact tracing.

Will you email their two chairmen, Mark Harper MP and Steve Baker MP, today to tell them you agree, and ask them to go one step further by writing to Rishi Sunak?

With the November Spending Review coming up, Rishi Sunak will be thinking about where he should invest. The recovery group and us have a clear demand: Give excellent local public health teams the resources to lead on contact tracing and scrap failing Serco and private company middlemen. It's the only way we'll fix track and trace.

Rt Hon Mark Harper MP, Chairman of the Covid Recovery Group

Steve Baker MP, Deputy Chairman of the Covid Recovery Group

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I am writing to you today as it is clear that the national, privatised track and trace system has not worked and cannot work.  I completely agree with the Covid Recovery Group's third guiding principle: we must shift 'resources to local public health teams to lead contact tracing and break the chain of transmission.'
Local public health teams need to lead from the start, with the resources to match, if we are to have any hope of fixing track and trace. While there have been several promises that local teams <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/councils-to-take-greater-role-in-contact-tracing-bntj3rn7p" target="_blank" rel="noopener">will get a bigger role in contact tracing,</a> this has yet to materialise meaningfully. Waiting several days until local teams can access the data on local positive cases and their contacts will make this system continually '<a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/fresh-pressure-wait-testandtrace-results-b65554.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">leaky</a>'. Leaving these teams understaffed and having to rely on <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/councils-to-take-greater-role-in-contact-tracing-bntj3rn7p">volunteers</a> means we have little chance of stopping this awful virus ripping through communities.  While there must be a certain amount of national coordination and guidance of test and trace, the evidence makes clear <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/07/test-and-trace-needs-radical-reform-in-england-health-experts-say" target="_blank" rel="noopener">again</a> and <a href="https://www.rsm.ac.uk/media-releases/2020/covid-19-call-for-millions-spent-on-failing-privatised-test-and-trace-system-to-be-diverted-to-local-services/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">again </a>that it is local and regional public health protection teams who are contact tracing most effectively. Ahead of this winter, for my community and my family, please help stop this atrocious waste of public money. The contracts with Serco, Sitel and their subcontractors must be scrapped in favour of giving those with public health expertise and knowledge of their communities the resources. Will you please write to Rishi Sunak and ask him to instead give resources to local publicly led contact tracing as part of the November Spending Review?   A functioning test and trace system is one of our only hopes of ending lockdowns on repeat. I thank you in advance for pursuing local, public health team led track and trace.

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