Sheffield protest will call on government to scrap controversial NHS Test and Trace contract with Serco

A protest will take place in Sheffield today over Serco’s controversial role in the £37 billion NHS Test and Trace programme.
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Demonstators will gather outside Sheffield Town Hall at 4.30pm today, Tuesday, April 27, to call on the Government to end the private firm’s Test and Trace contract and give the money to the public sector.

“The government has had to admit that their system isn’t working, and has handed over more contact tracing to local teams but it’s not enough. Now, we need to end Serco’s contracts once and for all,” said campaigners ahead of the protest.

Serco staff working on behalf of NHS Test and Trace operate a coronavirus testing centre (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)Serco staff working on behalf of NHS Test and Trace operate a coronavirus testing centre (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Serco staff working on behalf of NHS Test and Trace operate a coronavirus testing centre (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
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"We will have placards, leaflets about the Serco contract, and general info about how we can implement a Zero Covid strategy. And where this has been done successfully.

But the focus tomorrow is on driving out Serco and the devastating increase of privatisation, and criminally expensive and dangerously ineffective contracts in our NHS.

In March, a parliamentary committee concluded that the impact of NHS Test and Trace remained unclear, despite the Government setting aside £37bn for it over two years, and warned that the taxpayer should not be treated like an ‘ATM machine’.

But Baroness Dido Harding, head of the National Institute for Health Protection, which runs the system, defended it, saying at the time that it was doing more tests than any other comparable country.

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Despite its name, NHS Test and Trace is run separately from the health system.

Serco has pointed out that it is only responsible for a small part of the programme – including contact tracing and managing some testing centres – and as such has only received a fraction of the money spent so far, with misleading suggestions that it is getting the full £37bn well wide of the mark.

The firm says it is just one of 217 organisations supporting NHS Test and Trace and is not even among the top five organisations involved in the huge programme.

A spokesperson for the company said: “We are proud of our small but important role supporting the Department of Health and Social Care with NHS Test and Trace.”

The Star has contacted the Department of Health and Social Care.

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