NHS campaigners will use a ‘day of action’ to demand responsibility for tracking coronavirus cases is handed to the North East’s councils.
Ministers are preparing to renew contracts for the scheme, which also provides Covid-19 testing, and activists want to see cash handed to local authorities instead of private companies.
Members of the Sunderland branch of the Keep Our NHS Public campaign and Sunderland Trades Council will hold a socially-distanced demonstration at Sunderland Civic Centre today to raise awareness of the issue.
According to the group: “[Health secretary] Matt Hancock has handed track and trace to private companies like Serco for big money, but locally led public health teams are doing most of the contact tracing – with a fraction of the funds.”
It added: “It’s time to put local public health teams in charge of the whole system.
“They have the tools and the local knowledge they need to do this vital work before any second wave this winter.
“Now they need the money.”
