Swings & Roundabouts

Stopping and starting and stopping again. This has been quite a long, roller-coaster of a journey. For a range of reasons I have decided not to stay on at the Covid-19 Testing Centre.

The main reason is that there are too many coordinators in the Covid-19 Test Team. Two new coordinator staff started this week. There may also be more on the way. These new staff are, as indeed most of the rest of the staff in the team, re-deployed from elsewhere in NHS Lothian. I was the only one there from entirely outwith the service. There seemed to be an excess of coordinators and not enough staff or activity for everyone to coordinate. Nor is there presently a need for more testers as all of the available shifts for testing seem to be well covered and the contact tracing aspect is also up and ready to run elsewhere in NHS Lothian.

I have no wish undertake a role which seems largely supernumerary and it is far easier for me to withdraw than those seconded from elsewhere. I am happy to leave the service in their more than capable hands and return quietly back to my retirement (and allotment and, eventually, hopefully, playing music, hillwalking, travelling, cinema, theatre, cafes, bars, restaurants, etc., etc.).

This whole experience tends to confirms what some of my still working NHS colleagues have indicated. That the move within the NHS to deal with the coronavirus pandemic has been really mostly successful, especially in the rapid setup of increased ITU capacity and, with a bit of a lag for technical and laboratory capacity reasons, building up testing capacity, as well as in shutting down most other routine NHS activity. Obviously the infection and death rates have been, and are, way too high but that was down to decisions taken much earlier in this process on lock down and social distancing and testing & tracing. It was not in the remit of the NHS to influence. The next big tasks will be to roll out a comprehensive and effective Test & Protect service and to restart all of the other NHS services which have been in stasis for the last few months and treat all of the various illnesses and conditions to which we are all prone. Both of these areas will take time to build up and will outlast any time period for which I had hoped to return.

So this is definitely my final blog on this matter. Thanks for all of your interest. Stay well and stay safe.

Cheers