group) had neither provided contact details nor scanned the official qr code. on 14 october, the requirement to keep records was extended to cinemas, concert venues and theatres. in march 2021, it was reported that little use had been made of the data collected from app check-ins or by venues. on the 29th of that month it became a requirement for every customer or visitor to provide their names and contact details; until then, when a group entered a venue it was sufficient for the group's leader to provide just their own name and details. all legislation regarding data collection was revoked with effect from 19 july 2021. however, government guidance continued to encourage check-in by customers, visitors and staff, and the keeping of records. at-home self-testing a covid-19 lateral flow test provided by nhs test and trace in april 2021 from 9 april 2021, nhs test and trace made covid-19 rapid antigen lateral flow tests available for home use by everyone in england, regardless of symptoms or occupation, in preparation for greater relaxation of social distancing rules. it became possible for each person to order, free of charge, a box of seven tests through gov.uk. these are delivered by an overnight tracked service, with delivery possible through a standard home letterbox. the department of health and social care encouraged people in england to self-test twice a week in order to detect asymptomatic cases, which are reportedly as many as 1 in 3 infections. results from the lateral flow test are designed to return in 30 minutes, and the accuracy of the test is reported to be one false positive in every 1,000 tests. false negatives are more common however, with a study of a november 2020 pilot deployment in liverpool finding 23.2% of positive cases were not detected when tests were conducted by medical professionals, rising to 42.5% of positive cases when the tests were self-administered. anyone receiving a positive result is expected to self-isolate for the standard time mandated by government guidance. history the programme was outlined by matt hancock, the secretary of state for health and social care, at the uk government's daily briefing on 23 april, when he stated that 18,000 contract tracers would be hired; at that time the name given to the programme was 'test, track and trace'. at the 4 may briefing, hancock said he hoped to have the system in place by the middle of the month, and that 3,000 of the recruits would be medical staff. it was reported that serco and sitel had been contracted to supply 15,000 call centre workers, who would have a short training period, and hancock was criticised for not making use of around 5,000 environmental health workers in local authorities. in april 2020, ceredigion council had developed their own contact tracing system using local trained staff and volunteers, with better results. on 7 may, hancock appointed baroness harding to lead the contact tracing programme for england, with a remit to oversee the implementation of the programme and a contact tracing app; by this time the mode of working had been established and contracts had been signed with suppliers. on 18 may, hancock said 21,000 tracers had been hired. on 20 may, prime minister boris johnson told prime minister's questions that a team of 25,000 contact tracers would be ready to begin work on 1 june. the launch of the contact tracing service for england began on 22 may, when the government announced eleven pilot areas, including norfolk, where the service would be initially rolled out. a £300m investment package was also announced to help local authorities support the service. deployment the launch of the system in england – branded for the first time as nhs test and trace – was announced by boris johnson, the prime minister on 27 may 2020, and it went live the next day, before it was fully ready. initially officials believed it would have the capacity to identify 10,000 people a day. news that the service would be established without the phone app led to concerns manual tracing alone would not be effective enough to slow the spread of the virus. on the day of its launch, contact tracers began the process by contacting the 2,013 people who had tested positive for covid-19 the previous day. some tracers initially reported difficulties in accessing the system, but the uk government said it had not crashed and the problems were being resolved. on 28 may, harding told mps that the system would not be "fully operational at a local level" until the end of june. contractor serco stated in internal communications that they believed it would not be fully operational until september. by 1 june, hancock described the system as "up and running" but was unable to say how many cases had been handled. on 3 june channel 4 news reported that 4,456 confirmed cases of covid-19 were reported to test and trace between 28 and 31 may, with those people passing on 4,634 contacts, and of those it said 1,749 had been contacted by tracers. the government described the data as outdated. on the same day a contact tracer said in a bbc interview that although she had worked for 38 hours she had not been asked to speak to anyone since beginning work, and had spent her time watching netflix. in response the government said her story did not reflect the work taking place. in early july, nhs test and trace began to publish statistics for the numbers of tests performed and the time taken to return results. before this, unreliable data had been published so as to ensure that the numbers of tests rose for each daily press conference. decisions were made in order to achieve target numbers, rather than effective disease control systems. various government departments, agencies and consultants struggled to navigate a maze of different computer systems. evolution a reorganisation of the contact tracing element was announced on 10 august, following criticism that the service was not making use of local knowledge. the number of tracers in national teams would soon be reduced from 18,000 to 12,000, and some staff would work in teams linked to local authorities, at first in areas with high prevalence; the number of clinically trained advisors would not change. harding said "we have always been clear that nhs test and trace must be local by default ... we work with and through partners across the country". andy burnham, mayor of greater manchester, said on 2 september that resources from the national test and trace system had not yet been released to local authorities. earlier, authorities including blackburn and oldham set up local systems involving gps and public health england, as it was taking up to 96 hours for cases to be transferred from the national system. on 11 october, it was reported that local contact tracing had been trialled for several weeks in over 60 council areas, with local personnel picking up on "difficult cases". a government press release on 5 november stated that local tracing partnerships were in place for 148 local authorities, with a further 150 planned. later that month, the bbc reported criticism from councils concerning delays, missing contact details and lack of access to the central it system. a government press release on 28 january 2021 gave the number of local partnerships as 300. by 21 august there were around 370 testing sites, of which 38 were "walk-in" and 236 were mobile test units. on 10 september the total was 400, with a target of 500 by the end of october; this target was exceeded, with 600 in operation at 2 november. in december the fleet of mobile test units was replaced by vehicles with twice the test capacity, and their number was doubled from 250 to 500. at 28 january 2021 there were 800 test sites, and turnaround times had improved, with 94% of in-person test results returned the next day. by mid-september, more than 11% of people living in england had been tested at least once. in early december, this had risen to 20%. a business plan published in december set a goal of reaching 90% of cases, and 85% of the contacts they name, by the end of january 2021. overall speed would be increased by march 2021, with a goal of 72 hours for the interval starting when a person books a test (which turns out to be positive) and ending when around 80% of their contacts have been notified. partnership with local authorities would be strengthened, aided by up to £200m per month made available to them through the contain outbreak management fund. in march 2021, staffing was reduced by around 8,000 after cases declined from their january peak. by july 2021, all areas of england were covered by local contact tracing partnerships, where staff from local authorities take over cases where the national team has been unable to make contact within 24 hours. in the same month, it was reported that serco and sitel had been asked to recruit 7,000 call-centre staff in response to rapidly increasing infections. self-isolation support payments from 28 september 2020 until 23 february 2022, employed people who were asked to isolate were eligible for a £500 payment if they were unable to work at home and were receiving certain state benefits or had a low income. managed quarantine service from 15 february 2021, travellers entering the uk from outside the common travel area were required to quarantine for 10 days at their destination, or (if arriving from or via certain countries) to pay for 11 nights in a designated hotel. statistical reports from nhs test and trace began to include managed quarantine after the scheme's first five weeks, 15 february to 17 march; by that time 289,000 people had entered the system, 282,000 of them "at home" and 6,400 at a hotel. april 2021 restructure an announcement by hancock on 18 august established the national institute for health protection by combining nhs test and trace with parts of public health england. in march 2021, the new organisation was renamed the uk health security agency, and a formal start date of 1 april was indicated. ukhsa became fully operational on 1 october 2021, but with the nhs test and trace brand being continued through winter 2021/2. "living with covid" as part of the strategy for england called "living with covid", routine contact tracing ended on 24 february 2022. key people jenny harries (formerly a regional director at public health england and deputy chief medical officer for england) has been responsible for nhs test and trace since 1 april 2021, in her role as chief executive of the uk health security agency. previously, dido harding led test and trace since its formation; she has led nhs improvement since 2017. steve mcmanus has been the director of contact tracing since autumn 2020, on a six-month secondment from his role as chief executive of royal berkshire nhs foundation trust. earlier directors include tom riordan (for three months from mid-may 2020, alongside his role as ceo of leeds city council) and haroona franklin (brought in from hm revenue and customs in july). mike coupe, former ceo of sainsbury's supermarkets, was appointed as short-term leader of testing from october 2020, replacing sarah-jane marsh, chief executive of birmingham women's and children's nhs foundation trust, who was appointed in may. susan hopkins, a director in public health england's national infection service, held the position of interim chief medical adviser in september 2020. as of the following month, there were no other public health experts in the organisation's senior roles. concerns over testing capacity in late august 2020, the lighthouse labs were overstretched and sought assistance from nhs labs. a rapid increase in covid-19 cases in early september led to the demand for tests outstripping supply in some areas which caused delays in accessing the appointment system, and in some cases, people were being asked to travel longer distances to get tests. the leader of the testing programme, sarah-jane marsh, apologised on 8 september 2020, saying the "pinch-point" was laboratory processing. the following day the senior director of public health in a local authority was quoted as saying "i am not interested in an apology. i want them to pull their finger out and