Our Test and Trace system is finally ‘world-beating’, DAVID DILLON discovered

The retired GP who called from NHS Test and Trace had a reassuringly old-fashioned voice. 

He was hundreds of miles away in another part of England but his bedside manner was soothing and clearly honed in a bygone age. 

Perhaps my Covid-induced fever was at work but it was easy to imagine him dressed in a tired tweed jacket, his battered leather case at his side.

When, suspecting I had the virus, I contacted the much-maligned service by dialling the dedicated 119 number, it was with a sense of dread. 

Not that my fears I had Covid would be confirmed, but that I was about to endure hours of infuriating inefficiency.

I had read the stories of people being sent hundreds of miles from home for tests, only to be turned away; of phone lines manned by unqualified call-centre staff; and of IT problems bringing the system crashing down.

The retired GP who called from NHS Test and Trace had a reassuringly old-fashioned voice, writes DAVID DILLON

I wearily anticipated that in this tick-box era, my interactions with the NHS over the next few hours would consist of a series of blunt conversations either with a recording or, at best, someone woefully unqualified who would feed my responses into a computer and let it decide my fate.

Instead, as I lay in bed feeling steadily worse, this charming family doctor called just 20 minutes after I had completed an online questionnaire about my symptoms. 

It was a Sunday morning three weeks ago when infection rates were edging down, so perhaps falling demand had made the system run more smoothly and I had just got lucky.

But the friendly efficiency of all those handling my case in those worrying few hours – and over the ten days of my self-isolation period – left me convinced that, much like our globally envied vaccination programme, NHS Test and Trace is now something we can be proud of, too.

Its purpose is to control the spread of Covid by identifying those who might have the virus and testing them, and then tracing everyone they have come into contact with so they can be told to isolate and or get tested. 

And the figures are astonishing. Over the past seven days, almost 4.8 million Covid tests have been carried out, including 992,812 reported on Thursday alone.

Latest official figures also show that NHS Test and Trace reached 88.5 per cent of people who tested positive for coronavirus in the last week for which there are figures available (February 18 to 24). 

Of those positive cases, tracers managed to reach 93.3 per cent of their contacts. In total the service has managed to reach nine million people since its launch last May.

Last month, its boss Dido Harding told MPs that testing, tracing and self-isolation was expected to lead to a drop in the ‘R’ number – an indicator of the rate at which the virus is spreading – of 0.6 to 0.8 by the end of March. 

That number is in dispute, as teasing out exactly how much it is due to tracers telling people to self-isolate, when some would do it anyway, is difficult. 

However, it seems likely that NHS Test and Trace has had a significant impact on controlling the spread of the virus.

My telephone consultation with the doctor was a million miles from the hurried ten-minute encounters we have all grown used to at GP surgeries. 

He devoted close to 30 minutes of his time to carefully and forensically examine me from afar.

He apologised for having to run through some questions I’d already answered online, then did a simple test – asking me to count my breaths as he silently counted down from ten – to judge if my lungs were severely impaired. 

Last month, NHS Test and Trace boss Dido Harding told MPs that testing, tracing and self-isolation was expected to lead to a drop in the 'R' number – an indicator of the rate at which the virus is spreading – of 0.6 to 0.8 by the end of March

Last month, NHS Test and Trace boss Dido Harding told MPs that testing, tracing and self-isolation was expected to lead to a drop in the ‘R’ number – an indicator of the rate at which the virus is spreading – of 0.6 to 0.8 by the end of March

I could almost feel his cool stethoscope pressed to my chest. This was followed by detailed questions about my symptoms and some comforting small talk. I was surprised that my medical records were at his fingertips. 

I can’t be the only person who has had NHS hospital appointments where doctors inexplicably had no way of checking my history.

The NHS’s multi-billion-pound attempts to give doctors seamless access to medical records have been beset by problems, yet here were mine, magically available at the touch of a button. 

The doctor decided I needed a test and told me to await a call from a colleague who would direct me to a testing centre.

I foresaw a painful day ahead. I imagined waiting in a line a long way from home with Covid symptoms worsening by the hour.

With this prospect in mind, it was tempting to concede to my wife’s assertion that all I had was ‘man flu’ and call a halt to the process – but I didn’t get a chance. 

My phone rang within minutes and another friendly voice, a woman this time, was giving me the choice of attending one of two test centres within easy reach of my home in South-West London. One was a drive-through, the other a walk-in centre.

I chose the walk-in centre five minutes away by car. 

All of this had happened before 9.30am. I was even offered a choice of slots: would I like 10am or 10.30am?

Not quite believing the speed with which this was happening, I grabbed the earlier appointment, cynically predicting there was no way I’d been tested on time and would have to wait at least an hour.

At the test centre, a converted single storey council building in the middle of a housing estate, a man in a face mask and high-vis jacket directed me to a parking space, then used a two-way radio to tell his colleagues inside that I was on my way.

I held up my mobile phone to a scanner which read my details from a QR code emailed to me earlier, then I was directed to a booth to administer the test – a swab of the throat and nose – myself. I was in and out in five minutes.

At 6.07am the next day, my mobile pinged and a text message informed me that I had tested positive for Covid. 

It also informed me that I, my wife and our two sons must isolate at home for ten days.

Not long after, an email directed me to an online form asking for details of all those I’d come into contact with in the previous few days. 

This was followed by a phone call from another Test and Trace worker who checked that I’d accounted for everyone.

Where possible I was asked to let those I’d identified know they would be contacted.

Over the next ten days I received either a text message, a phone call or both every other day reminding me of my obligation to stay indoors and to make sure the rest of my family did the same. 

Each began with an enquiry about how I was feeling and a script about my privacy being safeguarded. 

I was feeling wiped out so had no desire to move very far from my bed but I suspect that by day five my teenage sons were itching to get out.

Psychology plays a key role in times like these and I believe the frequent calls thanking us for helping to prevent the spread of the virus by staying at home must have done something to convince them of their duty. 

The final call came on day ten of our isolation to check my symptoms had subsided enough for me to go outside again. 

Thankfully they had and life could return to something approaching normal.

Headlines that screamed Test and Trace was a shambles were justifiable in the weeks after it launched. 

Now, having experienced it, I believe it has become another Covid success story the Government and NHS deserves to take credit for.

My only complaint is that I still haven’t had an apology from my wife – it wasn’t man flu after all.