That head of the new coronavirus testing system ? Baroness Harding ?

[the other bob wilson]

My biggest gripe with all of this is not the scale of the challenge but the hype in response. We don't have problematic peaks and troughs of supply and demand for something set up from scratch. We have from the outset a world leading service. One minute the app is at its centre...the next it is the icing on the cake.

Targets are met for a day to meet Ministerial pronouncements then days later dwindle back to what they were before the self-imposed deadline. Performance indicators appear and disappear on political whim rather than informing us on where we are.

NHS Test and Trace was set up with Dido Harding as its head to report directly to the Prime Minister, not the Health Secretary. Since Public Health England has been scapegoated she has been rewarded for her efforts by becoming the Head of the National Institute for Health Protection which absorbs and amalgamates PHE and NHS Test and Trace.

Now running any of the existing bodies at a time of crisis could be overwhelming. Yet this government, in its haste to find a patsy in PHE decided to blow up the institutions in place and elevate and distract an already flawed leader like Dido Harding from her focus on ensuring adequate testing to similtaneously oversee and lead massive cultural changes in the machinery of government. It's not messaging it's how you best focus your resources to the biggest problem you anticipate you will face.

I'm continuously reminded of of an exchange in PMQs months ago when Keir Starmer said something like forget about "world beating", competent would be a start - September was supposed to be the month when the teething problems the test and trace system had were sorted out by.

[Blue Dwr]

I'm continuously reminded of of an exchange in PMQs months ago when Keir Starmer said something like forget about "world beating", competent would be a start - September was supposed to be the month when the teething problems the test and trace system had were sorted out by.

I don't understand how other countries such as S. Korea, Vietnam, even Italy's airports, have a test that can give results within 30 mins while we can't. Why do we have to reinvent the wheel??