On Wednesday I got an email asking me to volunteer to do the swab test. I said yes and the test arrived this morning, 36 hours after requesting it. I don't have symptoms.
The process of requesting it online is easy, they ask for your NI and NHS number but you can just say you don't know. They check your identity in some way, but they reassure you that it's not a credit check. It takes a few minutes and is no harder than filling in a return form for amazon, for example. They send you a couple of confirmation emails telling you to expect a package, with help line numbers and a brief summary of what you should do when you get it.
The test pack was waiting for me on my doorstep when I got up this morning, with the milk.
There is an instruction booklet. It is in pretty plain English. There are a lot of instructions to follow. It is a bit on the same level as making some flatpack furniture. What I mean is, it's perfectly possible to bodge it, you may think the shelves are fine, but they haven't been made as they should and there are some bits you haven't used, worryingly. With bookshelves it doesn't matter, with this . . . it matters a bit more maybe.
Performing the test itself was uncomfortable for me, but not a major problem. If you panic when the dentist wants to put something in your mouth, you'll find it a very challenging hurdle. But for me, that side of it was fine.
When you've done the test, you still have a lot to do. The swab has to be labelled correctly -- so you have to find the label. It has to go into a container, that container then goes into another container, the second container goes into a third, the whole sealed. and then you have to construct by origami a fourth container to put the other three into -- which in turn to be sealed in the correct way. Worryingly, the origami box didn't really fit the sample in all those containers, I had to bang and sit on it to make it close -- I wonder what I did wrong.
You then have to post it at a designated priority post box, which you find through a Royal Mail website. When you log in, it asks to use your present location, but in my case didn't function correctly (it basically just seemed to construct a postcode at random) so the post boxes it came up with were hopeless. No probs. I have a helpline number -- 131.
131 answered the phone very quickly and a cheerful lady told me some nearby priority post boxes (all very convenient) and then I was just saying goodbye when she said . . . and this is the killer "have you registered your test yet?"
Now, I have many degrees including a doctorate, I have done some mildly responsible jobs without failing, my kids are pretty happy adults, so I kind of see myself as an at least averagely capable person. But if she hadn't asked me I would have forgotten to register and so I would not have received my test results and probably, if positive, my contacts would not have been traced.
But it's all OK because she'll do it for me (normally you're supposed to do it online.) What a palava! She had to type a long code which was my order code (big panic finding the email with it on), a long code which was my test sample code, and a long code which was the postage code. All very long, all potential typo traps.
That process of registration seems to me a major weakness in the system so far. Why it couldn't have all been done automatically I do not know.
Anyway she said 72 hours maximum to get the test results. I'll post if and when they arrive.