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NHS Covid testing - has anyone managed to book one?

No luck here. One MP is advising just to turn up at the walk-in centre but first you need to know the opening hours, which vary, and be well enough to get there, of course.

My daughter's got a high temperature, persistent cough and a headache, plus a runny nose and sneezing. I'm just hoping it's a cold but how could anyone possibly know without a test.

My youngest has woken up with a 40° temp. Advice is to order a test. Ive been trying since 07:00, and there are no drive through or postal tests available. It’s been all over the local news this morning about how thousands of people who have been advised to get tested just can’t.
 
My youngest has woken up with a 40° temp. Advice is to order a test. Ive been trying since 07:00, and there are no drive through or postal tests available. It’s been all over the local news this morning about how thousands of people who have been advised to get tested just can’t.

Yeah it's a total mess. I've been up all night trying to get one. I managed a walk-in but I'm high risk and they advise not to go. I can't send my partner in those circumstances either.
 
Went to a walk-in yesterday in the off chance, after days of trying to book online. Was told there would be 30 places available on a first come first served basis at 8am today. Duly dragged the boy down again and waited hopefully with maybe 70 others. Eventually we were told that actually it was going to be appointment-only after all: they’d unexpectedly received only 25 testing kits for the day. Worker there reckoned government was deliberately squeezing supply. They’re kept in the dark about everything: advice they offer to people is contradicted the next day with no explanation. Incredible levels of patience on display all round.

That was our last chance, so we’re isolating for the next 10 days. There’s almost certainly nothing wrong with him, but he’s ticked all three of the symptom boxes to some degree, so can’t risk it. Inconvenient for us, disappointing for the kids. But without a positive test result his close contacts at school won’t be isolating, so if he does actually have it the chances of it spreading through the class seem pretty high.

The whole approach to schools assumes a functioning testing system, and it doesn’t exist. So actually it’s running on pure optimism: hopefully kids really aren’t that likely to spread it.

Absolutely everything with these guys is hit-and-hope.
 
The thing that is particularly galling is not so much that it's hard to get a test: it's a big new system, there will be teething problems, it will go wrong at first.

It's that it's totally unclear what the problem is or that the government has a handle on it. Even the statistics are incomprehensible, they show the capacity far exceeding the number of tests carried out. And there's no consistent message at all about why the problem has occurred, a problem which is specially worrying because numbers of cases in the community are so low at the moment. If it's not functioning now, and no one can say why, it will certainly not function when the weather gets colder.

The impression the government gives me is that they're burying their heads in the sand. There must be something very deeply fundamentally wrong with the way the thing has been set up.
 
And it’s not really ‘at first’ is it? Testing has been happening for almost 6 months now.

Well, it's a very big system and it's only now that it's being really tested out. But let's not argue about that, that's not the important thing. The the important thing is . . . what on earth is going on, and why is there so little transparency about the problem.
 
The thing that is particularly galling is not so much that it's hard to get a test: it's a big new system, there will be teething problems, it will go wrong at first.

It's that it's totally unclear what the problem is or that the government has a handle on it. Even the statistics are incomprehensible, they show the capacity far exceeding the number of tests carried out. And there's no consistent message at all about why the problem has occurred, a problem which is specially worrying because numbers of cases in the community are so low at the moment. If it's not functioning now, and no one can say why, it will certainly not function when the weather gets colder.
It’s not even new, they’ve had months to put this in place and to plan for the specific event of schools returning. But yes your right, the chances of finding out what’s wrong and fixing it are low, because the companies involved specialise in only two things: tendering for government contracts and covering up incompetence and fraud.

It didn’t have to be this way. Other countries had things up and running in weeks because they didn’t insist on private contracts and centralisation.
 
Ooof! The private clinic self Swab PCR tests are some money, approx 200 quid a pop, no wonder the govt is being thrifty with them at the moment!
FWIW, i think a lot of these private clinics are backed up with getting the results out now due to the amount of companies using them for their employees to go to wherever they are working.
And if anyone is a bit apprehensive about the procedure, don't be. I keep hearing people saying it's terrible and they don't want to do that again which in turn is making people all anxious about it, i've just had my 4th done and apart from a slight tickle at your tear duct when it goes up your nostril, it's absolutely nothing.
 
"The labs are still fully staffed, they are still churning through huge amounts of samples per day - the same number as they were a couple of months ago - so there are problems elsewhere in the chain. Clearly what we have now is some underlying issues that no-one wants to tell us about ..."

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...089bbb2677eb80#block-5f60873c8f089bbb2677eb80

From the same link:

The government is now shooting for the moon promising to deliver mass continuous testing with a test that doesn’t yet exist at a cost nearly as much as the total NHS budget.

Down here on Planet Earth, we need a fit for purpose test and trace system in the here and now with capacity, agility and accessibility that doesn’t require 100-mile journeys that disadvantage some of the most vulnerable.”

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, chair of the British Medical Association.
 
We've been trying to book an appointment for days. Finally got one earlier, but no confirmation at the end, and no email or text.

Does that mean we didn't actually get an appointment?
 
We've been trying to book an appointment for days. Finally got one earlier, but no confirmation at the end, and no email or text.

Does that mean we didn't actually get an appointment?
From what I saw this morning I think you need a QR code, which should have been sent to you. Can't be sure about this though.
 
From what I saw this morning I think you need a QR code, which should have been sent to you. Can't be sure about this though.

We have a copy of the code that was supposed to be texted to us. We're going to try our luck anyway (appointment between 1 and 1:30pm today). Will report back later...
 
In other news one couldn’t make up: Minister For Offshore Tax Havens Jacob Rees Mogg describes testing as “a success for the government” (Twitter).
 


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