City Mayor, Paul Dennett, and local MPs Rebecca Long Bailey, Barbara Keeley and Graham Stringer, have written to Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, slating the "partial and confused data" that is being received on coronavirus testing, which they insist "falls far short of what we need to...effectively prevent the spread of the virus", and is "at best unhelpful and at worst dangerous"...
They state that for the local public health director to effectively deal with the pandemic through testing and tracing, they need high quality patient identifiable data every 24 hours, 7 days a week... "This has simply not been forthcoming" they argue "For you to claim otherwise is at best disingenuous..."
They add that information on individuals who tested positive was only received on 2nd July for the first time, and that the "information falls far short of what we need to operationalise our outbreak management plan and effectively prevent the spread of the virus and potential outbreaks...
"The information now shared via the Daily Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 exceedance report provides at best an incomplete picture of the virus locally" they explain "It does not provide information on the total number of tests, the type of testing, or the setting for that test; it does not include any information on suspected cases, only on positive test results; information on occupation, workplace and workplace postcode is generally missing or incomplete; it provides postcode level data only, with no personalised information – making it almost impossible to connect information to reliable track and trace data, and to map cases to settings or locations in the city..."
They add that information on ethnicity is "not routinely provided"... "inexcusable" given the increased coronavirus risk to these communities, and slate the multiple data sources which "all show slightly different elements of test, track and trace information, with different timeframes, different baselines, and different points of comparison...a complex labyrinth of information that is at best unhelpful and at worst dangerous..."
They conclude that the data is "chaotic" which means that "we still don't know how many people in Salford have been tested, who they are, where they live or why they were tested...", adding that Salford has built its own track and trace management platform to "fill a gap".
The letter ends with the sentiment that "Our Public Health Teams and our communities deserve better..."
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