Gorton woman BLOCKS Test and Trace after 45 positive test calls

A mum who fell seriously ill with coronavirus has had to block the NHS Test and Trace number as she is getting inundated with calls repeating information she already knows.

Kathryn Beardow, from Gorton, says her family have been self-isolating after six out of seven members of the household tested positive for Covid-19.

NHS Test and Trace initially called her each time a family member tested positive, to ask who they had been in contact with and where they had been – details which she happily provided.

But she has since been contacted on behalf of each child in the family via individual phone calls from NHS Test and Trace operators, telling them to self isolate as they have been in contact with that member of the household.

A mum who fell seriously ill with coronavirus has had to block the NHS Test and Trace number as she is getting inundated with calls repeating information she already knows

Kathryn Beardow, from Gorton, says her family have been self-isolating after six out of seven members of the household tested positive for Covid-19

This has now happened dozens of times and she is repeatedly getting emails and voicemail messages telling her the same people in her household have tested positive.

The 38-year-old said the system is ‘totally flawed’.

‘I was getting bombarded with calls saying I have been in contact with my own children.

‘All in all they are making around 45 calls to one household to tell us we have been in contact with each other. As you are on the phone to one of them, you have another operator ringing you about another child.

Kathryn has been contacted on behalf of each child in the family via individual phone calls from NHS Test and Trace operators

‘Boris Johnson really needs to do a massive overhaul of the system. I’m now having to block the number, but my mail box keeps getting full from the track and trace,’ she said.

Kathryn said the situation isn’t helpful when she has been so ill with the virus and needs to rest.

She was rushed to hospital after falling ill on September 15.

She said: ‘I got a high temperature. I was hallucinating in the evening. I thought there were insects all over my body trying to eat me.’

She tested positive for Covid-19 after getting a test the next day. The following day, Kathryn collapsed and was sent to hospital.

‘I kept going unconscious. My head was pounding and I had really low blood pressure’, she said.

She was discharged later that day and was told to recover at home where she could isolate with the family.

Her husband Ivan and four of their children have also tested positive – Kathryn was the most seriously ill.

The mum, who has six children in total and one grandchild, still feels run down, she said. The family are still isolating at home.

‘The last thing I need is all these calls’, she added.

The 38-year-old said the system is ‘totally flawed’. ‘I was getting bombarded with calls saying I have been in contact with my own children’

A Department of Health and Social Care spokeswoman said: ‘NHS Test and Trace is one of the largest testing and contact tracing systems in the world.

‘The service is working hard to break chains of transmission, with almost half a million people who may otherwise have unknowingly spreading coronavirus contacted and told to isolate.

‘We are also providing tests at an unprecedented scale – over 240,000 a day on average over the last week – and expanding capacity further to provide 500,000 tests a day by the end of October.’

The spokeswoman also said work is ongoing to ‘improve the management of households’.

She said more information on this will be released shortly, but that their approach ‘has been to favour over contacting affected individuals rather than under contact in order to stem the spread of the disease’.