NHS (England) test-and-trace system 'not fully operational until September'

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Northerner

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The NHS coronavirus test-and-trace system designed to prevent a second deadly wave is not expected to work at full speed until September or October, the Guardian has learned.

Tony Prestedge, the chief operating officer of the NHS scheme, admitted in a webinar to staff that the programme would be “imperfect” at launch, adding that he hoped it would be operational at a world-class level within three to four months.

It comes as a leaked email from the chief executive of Serco – one of the main companies contracted to deliver the service – revealed how he doubted the scheme would evolve smoothly but said he wanted it to “cement the position of the private sector” in the NHS supply chain.

The disclosures come as scientists said lockdown measures should not be eased until the test-and-trace service is well established. The system, which tracks those who have contracted coronavirus and anyone they have been in contact with, before asking them to self-isolate, was rolled out across England last week with the help of 25,000 contact tracers.

www.theguardian.com

NHS test-and-trace system 'not fully operational until September'

Exclusive: chief operating officer told staff programme would be imperfect at launch
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

:(
 
I was listening to the radio yesterday - I think it must have been BBC radio 4 - about 12:30 and it was pointed out that the scheme is exposing people to fraud - a lot of money has been lost as there is no way to check that the website you are advised to go to by a caller is the genuine one. You can't contact the tracers directly, they call you, you go to the website, your passwords and information is stolen and so is your money.
The speaker was describing how naïve and uneducated the devisers of the system had to be to put people in that situation.
 
Depressing. How did other countries manage? And why on Earth didn’t we take advice from them? Our whole government response has been slow and lacking in all common sense.
 
Inka said:
Depressing. How did other countries manage? And why on Earth didn’t we take advice from them? Our whole government response has been slow and lacking in all common sense.
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It's obviously a lot easier when you don't have thousands of new infections per day.

Or to put it another way, other countries kept doing it from the beginning, rather than stop in early March when the thing was ramping up, and then re-start when it's run rampant through the population.
 
the scammers have all ready jumped on the thing.

warning if anyone gets a phone call from anyone claiming to be from NHS track and trace and it isn't a 0300 150 number hang up and if possible report the telephone number.
 
All major outsourcing projects seem to be handled by only a few companies like Serco and Capita. They have a history of being late and over budget yet continue to be used. I read on another forum that a major issue was that the software failed if someone had more than five contacts. Sadly having sub-contracted for one a decade ago I can believe it!
 
I worry that political dogma is getting into the equation along with friends of the government seeing a way to get their hands on a lot of tax money.

The dogma... that an assumption was made that existing systems were by definition not fit for purpose and that something new, not involving public services, would always be better. It is dogma. There was absolutely no way that an effective, let alone "world class" whatever that means, track, trace, isolate system could be built from scratch in a few weeks. It would take months and it was dishonest to suggest otherwise.

The Sercos and Capitas of this world love that sort of dogma because it allows them in to take a lot of tax money - although these days it is borrowed money, the tax comes later. They promise miracles, take the cash, and head for the bushes when the miracles don't happen whilst the politicians they are hand in glove with, come out with the lame excuses.

The alternative was to back the public health and primary care systems and give them the job and resources to do it. They would be starting at least with experience and knowledge and basic systems in place. They were, as far as anyone can see never consulted anywhere outside Downing Street, and will inevitably finish up trying to do the work. In the end, it will be a shambles.

Anybody who voted for this bunch of clowns ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
 
Meanwhile, in Scotland they are using the already established Public Health systems locally, it’s up and running. As @Docb says, they have the experience. They don’t need an App. And they know their customers. BJ and his Band of Fools don’t look at what other countries are successfully doing.

Serco don’t have any relevant experience, and have to make it up as they go along. The woman in charge of the English system used to run Talk Talk, long known to have the worst customer service of any phone company. Zero health and epidemiology experience. That seems to be a qualification to get top jobs in this emergency. In England, at any rate. Which taken on its own, now has the worst per capita cumulative death rate than any other country. That is also why at the daily briefings, they only use UK figures. The other nations in the UK make the situation in England look better than it actually is.
 
By the way, Northie, once again you don’t specify NHS England in your thread title. I know the Guardian didn’t, but if you could change it, it would make folk realise that it’s just England making a dog’s dinner of managing the current crisis.
 
mikeyB said:
By the way, Northie, once again you don’t specify NHS England in your thread title. I know the Guardian didn’t, but if you could change it, it would make folk realise that it’s just England making a dog’s dinner of managing the current crisis.
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I'll try and remember in future Mike 🙂

None of this should surprise us - this shower won the election and Brexit based on a whole raft of fanciful promises, but no semblance of an actual plan, so why should we expect them to suddenly become responsible, honest and capable? :( Not sure if anyone has ever worked it out, but I'd be interested to know how the cumulative years of experience of the current government compares to previous ones i.e. when you add up the years of Cabinet members spent in cabinet posts in former administrations. I feel they are completely out of their depth :( Apparently the flying quarantine is 'popular' with the public, as was the return of physical Parliament, so it strikes me that they are choosing to do what's popular in their focus groups rather than what actually makes any practical sense :( I guess that's why they are called 'populist', like the administrations in Brazil and the USA - the top 3 worst performers in management of the pandemic :( Rant over! 😉
 
mikeyB said:
By the way, Northie, once again you don’t specify NHS England in your thread title. I know the Guardian didn’t, but if you could change it, it would make folk realise that it’s just England making a dog’s dinner of managing the current crisis.
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Scotland also looks pretty awful on the numbers: eg ~440 deaths per million. That's a "bit better than Italy and Spain, a lot worse than Germany" kind of level.
 
The mess that is the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) is another example if what you get when you use people that do not understand the requirements!
 
mikeydt1 said:
the scammers have all ready jumped on the thing.

warning if anyone gets a phone call from anyone claiming to be from NHS track and trace and it isn't a 0300 150 number hang up and if possible report the telephone number.
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don't scamners fake telephone numbers, all the calls I get aren't from the number displayed.
 
Vicsetter said:
don't scamners fake telephone numbers, all the calls I get aren't from the number displayed.
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I read a Tweet from one of the Consumer Reporters saying on the day it was announced that there was an app that could spoof the number.
 
I had a phone call from my own number once, which as far as I’m aware isn’t possible! So I rang it from my mobile just to check that nobody had changed our number without telling us, and yes it is still our number. So I googled it, and apparently with the right equipment you can trick the caller display into showing any number you like. Which means you can never believe it again :(
 
It's possible to put a company name from the 'caller' end, for texts. I've got texts that show up as ASDA and NHS, amongst others, even though my phone didn't reconise the number.
 
Well - within the last few days, we've both had long texts from the NHS telling us to wait outside until our name is called when someone will let us into the waiting room which has room for x patients, one wheelchair and one pram space, blah blah blah. We gradually worked out from the geography it described (one way system so after the appt to leave via what was the emergency exit door at the end of the doctors corridor and other such details) that it was all from our GP surgery.

Nowhere did the texts actually say that though!

I happen to have quite a number of NHS appointments in the near future - not a single one of them at our GP surgery - so to say I'm annoyed is an understatement. I had a scan last Saturday at the main Coventry hospital and I timed myself walking from the main entrance door to the scan waiting room - an 8 minute walk! - imagine standing outside there and waiting for my name to be called - or the GP/Health Centre in Bedworth where I'm going for my diabetic bloods/urine on Monday, or the D Clinic at Rugby hospital where I'm going on Wednesday. Aaaaagghh!
 
trophywench said:
Well - within the last few days, we've both had long texts from the NHS telling us to wait outside until our name is called when someone will let us into the waiting room which has room for x patients, one wheelchair and one pram space, blah blah blah. We gradually worked out from the geography it described (one way system so after the appt to leave via what was the emergency exit door at the end of the doctors corridor and other such details) that it was all from our GP surgery.

Nowhere did the texts actually say that though!

I happen to have quite a number of NHS appointments in the near future - not a single one of them at our GP surgery - so to say I'm annoyed is an understatement. I had a scan last Saturday at the main Coventry hospital and I timed myself walking from the main entrance door to the scan waiting room - an 8 minute walk! - imagine standing outside there and waiting for my name to be called - or the GP/Health Centre in Bedworth where I'm going for my diabetic bloods/urine on Monday, or the D Clinic at Rugby hospital where I'm going on Wednesday. Aaaaagghh!
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I had an appointment at GP practice today. Instructions was not to turn up early. Email said to wait someplace else (eg your car) if you were. And wear a mask. Waiting room had 4 chairs spaced out. No instructions on leaving.
I've got diabetic eye screening next week, in the same building. Instructions for that are to use a (fire?) door on the other side of the building. Normally everything (2 gp practices, foot people, eye screening, physio etc) use the one maid door.

I've got a hospital appointment next week to. No instructions for that at all.
 
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