Covid: Tories call for end to contact tracing in Wales

Welsh ministers should stop spending money on contact tracing, say the Welsh Conservatives.

The Welsh government plans to spend another £36m on the "test, trace, protect" system in the 2022-23 financial year.

The Conservatives say it is not "a good use of money" and should be spent instead on alleviating the cost of living and NHS backlogs.

A Welsh government spokesperson said: "Covid has not gone away".

Plaid Cymru said contact tracing "must have saved lives" and was important to keep in place.

The budget for contact tracing in 2021-22 was £92m, involving 2,500 staff.

While the requirement to self-isolate has ended in law, and only LFTs and not PCR tests are now available to the general public, routine contract tracing has continued in Wales.

Under the Welsh government's Covid-19 strategy, it will end in June. It ended in England on 24 February.

Explaining Health Minister Eluned Morgan's decision to provide the additional £36m for the contact tracing workforce, a spokesperson said: "We are still testing people with symptoms, those on the treatment list and health and social care staff in order to protect the most vulnerable.

"The funding supports the transition phase to the end of June and will also enable us to scale up to respond to any surge in cases, respond to local outbreaks and possible future variants.

"The contact tracing teams will also provide further resilience to our wider health protection systems including tracking other diseases."

However, Welsh Conservative health spokesman Russell George said: "Given society has virtually returned to normality, this does not seem like a good use of money, especially at a time when the cost of living is on the up and the funds could be used on alleviating those issues or reducing the record-long NHS waiting lists.

"With only one minor restriction still in place in Wales, focus should now turn to providing the public with answers over the handling of the pandemic through a Wales-specific Covid inquiry, currently blocked by the Labour government."

The Welsh government spokesperson said: "The first minister is strongly committed to an independent inquiry and believes the best way to achieve this is through a UK-wide, judge-led inquiry which will have the capacity and force to oversee the interconnected nature of the decisions that have been made across the four nations."

Plaid Cymru has a co-operation agreement with Welsh Labour in the Senedd.

Plaid's health spokesperson, Rhun ap Iorwerth, said contact tracing systems set up by councils in the early days of the pandemic "must have saved lives".

He said: "The pandemic is not over, so it is important to keep these frameworks in place, and it is important that the Welsh government gives support to councils to enable them to maintain the service and to be prepared to grow their teams quickly again if needed."

According to the Welsh government's strategy, at the end of June:

The contact tracing system launched in Wales on 1 June 2020.