Test and Trace – Time to Get it Right

taken from weownit.co.uk

Test and Trace is currently an absolute shambolic mess and there’s no point pretending otherwise. Over the weekend, a mum I know of in Morecambe was told to drive over 130 miles to have her children tested, only to find that the centre was shut when she got there! I know of another woman in Skipton (that’s in North Yorkshire, if you’re unsure), being sent to Northern Ireland! This cannot go on. It’s beyond ridiculous! It also massively undermines the idea of levelling up, because families who can’t afford to travel further then have to keep their children out of school for longer, causing further disadvantage to their learning opportunities. Imagine having a fever, feeling unwell and then being asked to drive a long distance to get a test, which should be available in your vicinity. It’s unsafe. It’s also unfair to blame people for booking tests unnecessarily when a) people are only able to get a test if the people employed by Serco allow them to have one, b) children can’t go back into school, once sent home until they are proven ‘negative’ and c) the Prime Minister has promised testing to pretty much everyone via his ‘Moonshot’ approach.

 

It’s vital, as we enter the winter months, to get this right. Our ability to provide safe staffing levels across the NHS and enable schools to function properly genuinely depends on it. Last week at the NHS Assembly we debated the issue and a possible way forward. The contract issued to Serco is clearly not delivering what is needed, and so it’s time to take an honest appraisal of where we are and how we’re going to fix this. I know the Assembly will be writing in an official capacity to Dido Harding, who is currently in charge of the programme. In the mean time, here are my thoughts about what needs to happen now.

 

  1. It’s time to value the brilliant local public health leadership we have in place across the UK and ensure these leaders are supported to lead this work by providing timely data. After investing in the training and expertise of our Directors of Public Health, why on earth at a moment for which they have been trained to provide leadership are we circumnavigating them and making it so much harder for them to do their jobs? It would be worth an apology for not trusting them to do this in the first place and to own up that ‘Serco Test and Trace’ (not ‘NHS Test and Trace’) has failed in its task.
  2. We must ensure that local councils and Directors of Public Health have the resources necessary to lead the local test and trace approach and ensure they have the necessary powers to intervene where needed.
  3. The whole system must work – so we need to create more capacity in the laboratories across the UK to turn around results in a timely fashion.
  4. It’s vital that we engage regularly with local communities of many different kinds and their leaders to ensure they understand where things are up to, how we can work together to keep people safe and debunk any myths that are developing, whilst holding space for the uncertainty of the moment.
  5. Therefore we need clear, comprehensible messages to the public – we need to empower/permission local teams to lead on this messaging in a way that makes sense for their communities without constantly needing to check back with the centre. This comes down to trust.
  6. The NHS and Local/National Government need to become much more comfortable with using different communication channels like WhatsApp – and for young people Instagram, YouTube and Tik Tok – because this is what young people are using now to the exclusion of nearly everything else…..if we have unclear messaging and then don’t even use the platforms that young people are using, we have no right to scapegoat them (which is terrible practice anyway!).
  7. It’s really important that testing capacity is available rapidly and flexibly in areas with outbreaks. With the R number rising as it is and the current farce around availability of local tests, we simply can’t afford for this to continue.
  8. We must recognise the value of and therefore ensure early intervention and action ,rather than delaying decisions. This has been highlighted by Sir Jeremy Farrar, CEO of The Wellcome Trust and member of SAGE in some current learning form Marseilles, where the hospitals are back at the point of saturation.

 

I’m not sure how or why it was decided that Serco should run this show in the first place. However it’s clearly not working. It’s time to make brave decisions. It’s time to get this local and focused. It’s time to get this right. Our lives may actually depend on it.

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A Second Brexit Referendum Would be NO Failure of Democracy and is the Only Realistic Option Available

Sick of Brexit? Me too! But we are where we are, thanks to David Cameron asking us all a question, that most of us weren’t actually thinking about. If nothing else, the Brexit debacle has shown us that complicated issues cannot be dealt with by simple yes/no answers and our current political system is pretty defunct!

 

It seems the Prime Minister, Theresa May, unlikely to remain in her post for much longer, has

(Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

failed to find a way through the mine field of trying to please all sides. However had she been more collaborative and inclusive in her leadership style, reaching out across the house from the beginning of the negotiations, we might not be in quite such a mess.

 

We are now left with only 2 workable options. Realistically, there is no ‘deal’ that is going to make it through parliament. There is too much resistance from one faction or another to make that possible. Therefore, we EITHER leave the EU with no deal – something which would be potentially catastrophic for the people of Ireland (north and south) and indeed for the economy, at least in the short term, (which when you work in public services, including the NHS, after years of austerity, would be completely unacceptable ) OR we remain in the EU.

 

We certainly know far more now than we did when we voted a couple of years ago. When we voted last time, there were hyperbole and deception on both sides. We have proven that it is impossible to have a soft Brexit – it’s simply unworkable, due to the complexities and factions involved, and it basically means remaining in the EU but with far less influence. We are now much more clear about what the question actually is. So, we either leave with no deal and face the consequences, or we remain. The negotiations have failed, the options are now in front of us and there is no other way forward but to ask the people again.  We have now heard the arguments, we’ve participated in a much more detailed debate and so it is time to make sure that the British people really want to leave the EU, now that the terms are more clear. A General Election will offer us very little, especially as people seem overwhelmingly unsure of who to vote for! In my opinion, a 2nd referendum is now the only way we can clear up this mess. This is not a betrayal of democracy – it is democracy in action!

 

 

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What Lies Beneath?

Tweet Do you sometimes wonder what is really going on? As the furore around the planned 5-day strikes by junior doctors unfolds, with all the clamour and the noise, the positioning, the power plays, the arguments and the counter-arguments, I wonder where is the truth amidst the madness? How have we reached a stage in [Continue Reading …]

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