Coronavirus: 'Worrying' questions remain after technical error blamed by PHE for 15,000 missing cases, expert says

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. The explanation prompted concern that additional cases may remain overlooked, with one expert comparing the system apparently used to collate testing data to “a similar architecture you used to see in banks 30 years ago”. The “technical issue” was that some digital “files containing positive test results exceeded the maximum file size” accepted by the government’s central computer systems, officials said. “But then, presumably, somebody would have caught it earlier and, if they didn’t catch it, does that mean they weren’t reconciling things to make sure all the tests were actually counted?” Asked whether smaller quantities of test results could have been slipping under the radar for weeks, a PHE spokesperson told The Independent: "Smaller numbers wouldn’t have triggered this problem. “But it looks like what’s happening is that all the testing centres have got their own systems and then at some point a batch of those get sent to the centre, which is a bit odd for this day and age.” He continued: “It’s not a huge surprise on a big system that you get teething problems, but at the same time — and I should show some of my frustration here — building a completely new system as we have done, rather than continue with the existing NHS track and trace and just utilising that, all seems odd to me.