NHS Test and Trace failed to contact one third of people who tested positive for coronavirus because they 'simply didn't feel like answering the phone', claims Health Minister Edward Argar

Health Minister Edward Argar today blamed the early struggles of the NHS Test and Trace programme on sick people not wanting to pick up the telephone. 

The Government yesterday published data which showed that in the first week of the programme being up and running some 8,117 people who tested positive for Covid-19 in England had their case transferred to the NHS system.

However, while 5,407 (67 per cent) of these people were reached, some 2,710 (33 per cent) did not provide information about their contacts or could not be reached.

The large number of failed attempts to speak to people who tested positive immediately prompted concerns about how effective the programme will be in stopping the spread of coronavirus.  

But Mr Argar said this morning that 'you sometimes simply don't feel like answering the phone or responding to much at all' when you are unwell as he highlighted a potentially major flaw in the system. 

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Edward Argar, the Health Minister, today blamed the early struggles of the NHS Test and Trace programme on sick people not wanting to pick up the telephone

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NHS Test and Trace contact tracers failed to reach 33 per cent of people who tested positive for coronavirus

He told the BBC: 'Some people won't necessarily have answered their phone. You and I know what it's like if you have flu for example, and Covid-19 is a much, much nastier disease than that. 

'You sometimes simply don't feel like answering the phone or responding to much at all.'

He added: 'This is the first week of this new scheme and I think it has started off very, very well.'

Mr Argar said the Government will 'continue to chase up those who didn't respond'.

Ministers launched NHS Test and Trace without its key contact tracing app which is still being trialled on the Isle of Wight after its development was beset by problems.  

Health Secretary Matt Hancock previously said he wanted the app to go live nationwide in mid-May but it has been delayed and no fixed date has been given for when it will be made available. 

Experts believe the app will be critical to the success of the programme because it digitally logs people's close contacts. At the moment the system is entirely reliant on human testimony and physical contact tracing work done by an army of contact tracers. 

The app's contact tracing data would massively speed up the process of finding out who has been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for the disease. 

Mr Argar said the app is a 'complex piece of technology' and it is still being trialled as he sought to down play its importance. 

He said: 'Well, it's still being trialled on the Isle of Wight. It's a complex piece of technology, and we continue to develop it and work to refine it.

'But, actually, as Dido Harding, who heads up the test, track and trace programme, has said, in a sense, the app is the cherry on the cake for this programme.'

Mr Argar argued that the human tracing element of NHS Test and Trace is what matters the most. 

He said: 'It is the human contact. It is the tracing that's been done... that is the core part of making this programme work.

'So, the app has the potential, in the future, to be another step forward. But, it isn't the vital part of it. The vital part of it is this human tracing that we have already got running.'

Of those people who were reached and asked to provide information about their contacts, just over three-quarters (79 per cent) were contacted within 24 hours of their case being transferred to the Test and Trace system. Some 14 per cent were contacted between 24 and 48 hours, 3 per cent between 48 and 72 hours, and 4 per cent were contacted after 72 hours

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Between May 28 and June 3, 8,117 people who tested positive for the coronavirus were referred to the NHS's flagship scheme. But statistics show contact tracers could only get information from 67 per cent of them (5,407)

Baroness Harding admitted yesterday that NHS Test and Trace is not yet 'at the gold standard we want to be'. She added: 'Is it completely perfect? No, of course it isn't.' 

On the difficulties of getting in touch with everyone who tested positive, she said: 'We won’t have got all of the contacts. Some were unreachable, some didn’t want to provide contacts, some said "well, I’ve already told my mates I tested positive".'

Officials have insisted they are happy with the programme's initial performance but they have conceded improvements are needed.

Concerns have been expressed that there is no way of NHS Test and Trace knowing if people who have tested positive are actually complying with the advice to self-isolate. 

Mr Hancock has repeatedly said people have a 'civic duty' to self-isolate if they test positive or if they are identified as a contact of someone who has.