Test and Trace call handler resigns after patient hears SEX NOISES on voicemail

A TEST and Trace call handler has resigned after a Covid patient got a voice message with sex noises in the background.

William Ryan, 33, claimed he could hear two people talking and then having sex on the recording left on his answerphone by the Government’s testing team.

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He thought it was a wrong number but when he received a follow-up call from the same number a week later he made an official complaint.

He said: “They rang me quite early but I was still asleep as I was ill.

“Then I woke up to a voicemail from a number I did not recognise. It was like someone was having a good time.”

The UK Health Security Agency, which ran the service, launched an investigation into the December call.

It has now confirmed a call handler who was working for it at the time has resigned over the matter.

It said it contracts external companies to run the NHS Test and Trace call handling service but “expects high standards of all contracted staff at all times”.

Mr Ryan, of Basildon, Essex, said previously of the voicemail message: “I was quite shocked. I had to listen to it three or four times and I sent it to a few people.

“Everyone said, ‘Yes, definitely, it is what you’re saying it is’.

“It’s unprofessional. I know people are working from home. I’m working from home and I’ve got kids and stuff.

“I just want an apology. I wouldn’t think in a million years this would ever happen to someone like me.”