'Positive and encouraging' early results from Sheffield's new local Test and Trace approach

Currently, only about 72 per cent of people in the city are successfully being contacted by the service, which is run nationally.

That number is lower than the current national average of 77 per cent and one Sheffield’s director of Public Health, Greg Fell, has admitted is not good enough. Mr Fell said between 90 and 95 per cent of contacts must be traced for the system to work properly.

Last week, Sheffield City Council began “a very small targeted amount of contact tracing, working with the NHS and Public Health England”, Susan Hird, a consultant in Public Health at the local authority, told The Star.

She said: "If Test and Trace fail to be able to make contact they pass that on to us to follow up those cases. We find them and find out who their contacts are.

"The early results we have got for the last few days have been really positive.”

About 60 per cent of people originally missed who would otherwise have risked spreading coronavirus have been traced, potentially saving lives.

Ms Hird said: “It’s very early days and we will see how it goes. The last week was very positive and encouraging. I think we will be keen to continue it for as long as we need to.

"We can offer support – we’re actually able to say ‘What do you need?’”

Ms Hird said one of the benefits of running Test and Trace locally is that people are called from a Sheffield number, which makes them more likely to answer the phone.

"Once you have got them on the phone and you say you are from Sheffield people are much more willing to talk,” she added.

Several Sheffield MPs have called for Test and Trace to be handed over to the local authority.

Ms Hird said: “You need to have a system which works across different levels. I think there’s a place for a local aspect, regional and national.

"It’s about working out what’s the optimum way of putting all these things together to reach the maximum number of people.”