From the FT, 18 Jan.

The head of the UK’s test and trace programme has defended paying hundreds of private consultants an average of £1,000 a day as she set out plans to spend billions on rapid testing technologies in the coming months...

...There are 900 consultants from Deloitte working on the government’s test and trace programme, earning an average day rate of £1,000 — roughly £22,000 a month — David Williams, second permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care, told the MPs.

But we can only afford to give nurses an effective pay cut, eh, Bonzo? And as we are short of at least 40,000 nurses, with thousands more set to leave, exhausted and traumatised by the pandemic, have you momentarily and conveniently set aside the Tory mantra of supply and demand?

Incidentally, the BMJ has stated that test and trace (costing tens of billions) has had no effect on the pandemic.