Britain’s lockdown exit strategy hit yet another setback on Thursday night as ministers admitted they were scrapping their much-vaunted tracing app.
In a damaging U-turn, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the system the Government had spent months developing would not work on millions of phones.
Instead he said the NHS would be reverting to a technology used in other countries which ministers had previously dismissed.
However, officials have no idea whether the new smartphone app will be effective – or indeed if it will be ready in time for winter when coronavirus is expected to be resurgent.
The setback is a fresh embarrassment for the Government after a string of policy U-turns over testing, protective equipment for health workers, the return of schools and the quarantine system for travellers.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he is still committed to developing a Covid-19 contact tracing app, despite the embarrassment of the Government at its initial failure
Baroness Dido Harding, who is in charge of test and trace, revealed the NHS’s app did not work on iPhones
The app was supposed to have been rolled out last month as a key part of what Boris Johnson promised would be a ‘world-beating’ test-and-trace system to help Britain track cases and ease lockdown restrictions.
Ministers hoped the technology would work alongside human contact tracers to identify local outbreaks of the virus and shut them down before they spread.
But reports of problems with the app soon become widespread and earlier this week junior health minister Lord Bethell admitted it was ‘not a priority’ and might not be ready before winter.
Officials confirmed the problems on Thursday, and announced they would be switching from the technology run by NHSX – the Health Service’s digital arm – to a version jointly provided by Apple and Google.
This is because a major trial on the Isle of Wight had revealed that the app didn’t work properly on Apple iPhones, one of the UK’s most popular handsets with seven million sold last year.
Figures from the trial had shown the app would detect just four per cent of contacts on iPhones, compared with 75 per cent on Android devices. The Apple-Google system detects 99 per cent.
The app developed by the NHS didn’t work for people using Apple iPhones and effectively went into sleep mode, failing to pick up nearby devices using Bluetooth (stock image)
NHS Test and Trace contact tracers failed to reach 33 per cent of people who tested positive for coronavirus
Mr Hancock said officials had stumbled across a ‘technical barrier’, admitting ‘as it stands, our app won’t work because Apple won’t change their system’. But he refused to say when the new app would be ready.
The failure of the app project – which the Department of Health had been working on since the start of April – has caused dismay in Downing Street.
On Thursday night there was renewed speculation about Mr Hancock’s position in the next reshuffle. One government source acknowledged the episode was a ‘shambles’, adding: ‘He has over-promised and under-delivered and we have seen too much of that.’
The setback has fuelled Tory unease over its handling of the crisis and, at a private meeting with senior Tory MPs on Wednesday, Mr Johnson was told he needed to break out of his Downing Street bunker and start listening to backbenchers to avoid further missteps. In other developments:
- A 13-day-old baby with no underlying conditions became Britain’s youngest victim as the death toll rose by 135 to 42,288;
- Plans for a ‘travel corridor’ between the UK and France were in doubt as Mr Johnson and Emmanuel Macron failed to make a breakthrough;
- MPs urged England to follow Northern Ireland in allowing schools to operate with social distancing of just one metre;
- A day of good news on levels of infection provided growing evidence the outbreak is coming under control;
- The Bank of England governor warned Britain is facing the most dramatic rise in unemployment in his lifetime.
At the Downing Street press conference on Thursday Mr Hancock would not say when the new app would be ready.
He said: ‘We’re working on it. We’re not going to put a date on it I’m afraid because I’m absolutely determined that, whilst this technology can help, it’s got to be working effectively.’
He said he would be combining ‘the best bits’ of the old app and Apple-Google’s – but officials are not completely confident this will work.
The guidelines set down for the app, of which Boris Johnson had promised a ‘world-beating’ test-and-trace system to help Britain combat coronavirus
Labour health spokesman Jonathan Ashworth said: ‘The Government’s response has been slow and badly managed. Time and money has been wasted.’
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said: ‘This is yet another example of the dangers of over-promising and under-delivering.’
Several countries have already launched contact-tracing apps including France, Italy and Germany.
The app is meant to be central to the test-and-trace strategy but figures suggest this is far from perfect itself, with just 73 per cent of those who tested positive for the virus giving details of their close contacts.