£500 payment for positive test
Cash support for all Covid cases under consideration as an incentive to get more people tested
MINISTERS are considering paying £500 to everyone who tests positive for Covid, under plans which would cost the state almost £2 billion a month.
Health officials are understood to have drawn up proposals amid concern that just one person in six with symptoms is coming forward for tests, because some fear a positive result would cost them too dearly.
Under the current system, only those on a low income who cannot work from home and are eligible for benefits can apply for a “support payment” of £500.
But ministers are considering replacing it with a universal payment, which would mean anyone with a positive test could claim the funds. It is estimated the scheme could cost £453million a week, 12 times the cost of the current system.
Papers, which could be discussed by ministers as soon as today, also suggest stopping payments for close contacts of positive cases. Currently, such people are also eligible for payments if they are on low incomes. But the proposals suggest instead introducing nationwide self-testing, so those who test negative can return to work.
The scheme is due to be considered by the Government’s coronavirus operations committee, chaired by Michael Gove, in the next few days.
A 16-page document, dated Jan 19 and marked “Official Sensitive”, says the option is the “preferred position” of the Department of Health and Social Care, according to The Guardian. A Whitehall source said the option was one of four on the table, and that more recent drafts of the policy paper did not state a preference for the option – the most costly of the four being discussed.
The overhaul is understood to have been prompted by Cabinet Office polling which suggested that only 17 per cent of people with symptoms are com- ing forward for testing, according to the policy paper.
It said: “Wanting to avoid self-isolation is now the single biggest reported barrier to requesting a test.”
A separate survey carried out for the DHSC found that only one in four peo- ple reported compliance with self-isolation, while 15 per cent went to work as normal.
The current Test and Trace Support Payment system, which pays £500 to those on low incomes, who receive one of seven means-tested benefits, and cannot work from home, excludes many small business owners and sole traders, as well as the self-employed.
Councils have also been given an additional pot of £15million in “discre- tionary” funding, with an extra £10million recently promised.
But the review of the scheme by health officials concluded that it excluded too many people, had created a “postcode lottery” and suggested that only one in four of those eligible for help received it.
It says that the application process was “too complex”, and proposed four ways the programme could be overhauled.
The most generous is paying £500 to anyone who tests positive.
Other options are paying the lump sum only to those who test positive and cannot work from home, costing up to £244 million a week.
A third option involves paying those earning less than £26,495 a year or on means-tested benefits, at a cost of £122 million a week.
The fourth proposal would see a significant expansion of the discretionary funding to councils.
A senior government source said the document was “a very early draft” which “may not even have got to ministers,” adding: “We think the current system of payments and hardship funds is helping people who are in financial difficulties.”
A DHSC spokesman said the department would not comment on leaks but added: “All local authorities’ costs for administering the Test and Trace Support Payment scheme are covered by the Government, and each authority is empowered to make discretionary payments outside of the scheme.”
‘Wanting to avoid selfisolation is now the single biggest reported barrier to requesting a test’
4,973,248 VACCINE FIRST DOSE +363,508
37,892 DAILY CORONAVIRUS CASES
+14% CHANGE IN 7-DAY AVERAGE
94,580 DEATHS +1,290