THE NHS Test and Trace scheme is to be dismantled as there is no more money left, leaked documents have revealed.
The 160-page Whitehall dossier, named Operation Rampdown, showed plans to axe the £37billion flop in 2022.
Trending In The Newsday Mirror learned that the scheme, run by Sitel and Serco, will be wound down due to high costs.
Last week up to 10,000 contact trace workers were told their jobs were being axed and managers told teams that there was “no money left”.
Also ditched will be the requirement to self-isolate for ten days when exposed to coronavirus.
A Whitehall insider told the Mirror: “The trough has run dry and the Treasury isn’t prepared to keep feeding the beast.
“The problem is, however, that cases are still rife and winter is yet to begin.
“For all its faults, it’s a dangerous game to sack contact tracers when the pandemic is still raging.
“You only have to look to Europe to see how things change. This is going to cause problems tracking variants or even keeping an eye on local outbreaks.”
In October it was revealed that taxpayers wasted an “eye-watering” £37billion on the scheme.
The report by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found the vast sum was used to hire more than 2,000 consultants, some of whom were paid over £1,000 a day.
In total it was equal to almost a fifth of the entire NHS budget and at times only 11% of contract tracers were working.
Published ahead of the Chancellor’s budget which was earmarked £5.9 billion funding boost for the NHS is sure to rattle feathers in a lack of control of overspending.
Dame Meg Hillier, chairman of the public accounts committee, said: “The national Test & Trace programme was allocated eye-watering sums of taxpayers’ money in the midst of a global health and economic crisis.
“It set out bold ambitions but has failed to achieve them despite the vast sums thrown at it.”
The Test and Trace scheme was created in May 2020 and had a budget of £22billion.
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