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19-01-2021, 01:52 AM
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Test and Trace boss Dido Harding defends paying consultants £1,000-a-day

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/h...-b1789098.html



Asked by MPs whether it was right for at least 900 workers to be earning on average £1,000 per day, Tory peer Baroness Harding, head of NHS Test and Trace. said: "I think it is appropriate to build a service in extreme emergency circumstances using short-term contingent labour and consultants for some of those roles.

The details regarding the number of consultants working in the service, which has a £22,000,000,000 budget and was formally started last spring, came during answers to the committee from David Williams, the second permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care.

He said there were about 900 consultants from the firm Deloitte working for Test and Trace - down by approximately 100 since October - and said there was "a plan in place to see that number reduce markedly over the course of the next few months".

MPs said that, as recently as November, there were 2,300 consultants and contractors working on the scheme.

Mr Williams said he did not want to "get into the specific detail of individual contracts" when asked about reports that some consultants were earning as much as £7,000 per day. He promised to later write to the committee about the highest day rates paid by Test and Trace.

Pressed on whether he was confident that there had been no private sector profiteering from the Test and Trace budget, Mr Williams replied: "Yes, as confident as I can be based on the information that I've seen and based on the regular reporting that comes up through the Test and Trace commercial and finance staff."
Evasion and obfuscation regarding costs from "Incompetent" Harding and 'the second permanent secretary' .....

I look forward to the NAO's spring report - 'The government’s approach to test and trace in England" .....
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19-01-2021, 11:34 AM
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Re: Test and Trace boss Dido Harding defends paying consultants £1,000-a-day

These Covid tests are supposed to know if you have got this virus, but does anybody know if they can tell if you've had it, say 6 months ago, and got over it?
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19-01-2021, 11:48 AM
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Re: Test and Trace boss Dido Harding defends paying consultants £1,000-a-day

Originally Posted by Mups ->
These Covid tests are supposed to know if you have got this virus, but does anybody know if they can tell if you've had it, say 6 months ago, and got over it?
That's a different test and one that isn't all that accurate because some people develop antibodies and keep them for longer than others.
Research is ongoing, we're told.

My OH has had the antibody test, IIRC around the middle of last year and it showed that she had been infected which means there's quite a probability that myself and my son were also infected.
The only time that we can think of having any symptoms was around Christmas time 2019/2020 when we all suffered withan unknown lurgi that lasted a good few weeks, otherwise we have all been asymptomatic.

Here's the blurb on the antibody test:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/corona...d-coronavirus/
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19-01-2021, 12:05 PM
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Re: Test and Trace boss Dido Harding defends paying consultants £1,000-a-day

Thanks Zaphod.
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19-01-2021, 12:59 PM
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Re: Test and Trace boss Dido Harding defends paying consultants £1,000-a-day

Originally Posted by Zaphod ->
That's a different test and one that isn't all that accurate because some people develop antibodies and keep them for longer than others.
Research is ongoing, we're told.

My OH has had the antibody test, IIRC around the middle of last year and it showed that she had been infected which means there's quite a probability that myself and my son were also infected.
The only time that we can think of having any symptoms was around Christmas time 2019/2020 when we all suffered withan unknown lurgi that lasted a good few weeks, otherwise we have all been asymptomatic.

Here's the blurb on the antibody test:
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/corona...d-coronavirus/

Strange you should say that, as my Daughter, Son & I had a weird cold type bug just before Christmas 2019., Weird cough with it & that lasted a few weeks as well. We had never had anything like it before & the cough was a dry one. None of us felt particularly ill with it, it was just annoying.
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19-01-2021, 02:20 PM
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Re: Test and Trace boss Dido Harding defends paying consultants £1,000-a-day

Originally Posted by Tiffany ->
Strange you should say that, as my Daughter, Son & I had a weird cold type bug just before Christmas 2019., Weird cough with it & that lasted a few weeks as well. We had never had anything like it before & the cough was a dry one. None of us felt particularly ill with it, it was just annoying.
Yes, they sound just like the symptoms we had and AFAIK these or very similar were widespread around the Lincs coast and up to & including Hull at least at that time too.
Or so friends, family and colleagues told us when we were all feeling the effects of whatever it was.

I should point out that I'm no conspiracy theorist; I'm pointing out what happened in my family & friends and when.
But it is interesting that there have been suggestions of a pensioner from Kent being the first recognized death, way back in January 2020 and this is confirmed by our own ONS.

And since we now know that from exposure to infection with symptoms to a conclusion like death usually takes many weeks (and there are suggestions that this interval increases with age) it surely isn't unreasonable to assume from there that this virus was active at least somewhere in the UK before the Christmas of 2019.

Whether or not we will see any of this researched-into more fully remains to be seen, but it is certainly food for thought.
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19-01-2021, 03:19 PM
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Re: Test and Trace boss Dido Harding defends paying consultants £1,000-a-day

Originally Posted by Zaphod ->
Yes, they sound just like the symptoms we had and AFAIK these or very similar were widespread around the Lincs coast and up to & including Hull at least at that time too.
Or so friends, family and colleagues told us when we were all feeling the effects of whatever it was.

I should point out that I'm no conspiracy theorist; I'm pointing out what happened in my family & friends and when.
But it is interesting that there have been suggestions of a pensioner from Kent being the first recognized death, way back in January 2020 and this is confirmed by our own ONS.

And since we now know that from exposure to infection with symptoms to a conclusion like death usually takes many weeks (and there are suggestions that this interval increases with age) it surely isn't unreasonable to assume from there that this virus was active at least somewhere in the UK before the Christmas of 2019.

Whether or not we will see any of this researched-into more fully remains to be seen, but it is certainly food for thought.
It does seem strange to get bug similar to Covid though, unless there are lots of different types of virus floating around with similar symptoms, my Daughter & I remarked on what we had back in the begining of December at the time the virus was first noted.
Yes, it is food for thought. I have never been tested though & yesterday I had my first Covid jab.
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19-01-2021, 03:44 PM
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Re: Test and Trace boss Dido Harding defends paying consultants £1,000-a-day

Sadly, I find your fond reminiscences singularly uninteresting, while, of course, they are nothing at all to do with the thread topic .....
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19-01-2021, 04:33 PM
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Re: Test and Trace boss Dido Harding defends paying consultants £1,000-a-day

Hi

She is an idiot.

She is paying management consultants who have no experience of track and trace at all.
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19-01-2021, 04:52 PM
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Re: Test and Trace boss Dido Harding defends paying consultants £1,000-a-day

Originally Posted by Omah ->
Sadly, I find your fond reminiscences singularly uninteresting, while, of course, they are nothing at all to do with the thread topic .....
Like your post you mean?
 
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