‘My work calendar says I have zero sessions for every day I can see’

When they do get their act together I will do some sessions, but my enthusiasm is evaporating rapidly

It was in those few days just before lockdown, when they started to talk about closing schools, that we realised just how serious this was getting. But I don’t think even then we had any concept of what this might do to the NHS. Then we saw the scenes in Italy of bodies lying in the corridors and hospitals absolutely packed.

At that stage, I thought: “l’ll do anything that I can to help.” As a retired consultant, who practised in the NHS and privately, I assumed something hospital-based might be more useful. At the time they were planning the Nightingale hospitals and I thought that would be an ideal fit for someone with my background.

Then, at the beginning of May, they started talking to me about contact tracing. I knew it would be fairly mundane, but I was prepared to do it.

Contact tracing is necessary and needs to be done by someone, somewhere.

The week before launch, I had my contact-tracing training. We mainly just read out the advice we received from pre-prepared presentations. But by employing ex-clinicians it means that when people start asking difficult questions I can make it clear that I do have a medical background and that I used to be a doctor. I think a lot of people will hopefully find that very reassuring.

Last Wednesday they suddenly announced they were bringing the contact-tracing system forward and launching it the next day.

I thought: “Well I haven’t even got my logins so it’s academic what they do tomorrow, I can’t help.” That evening, I was lying in bed reading my messages when I saw the email finally come through with my logins.

Thur May 28 – launch day

The day I was supposed to start I went to my home office. I tried to log in several times and thought: “Oh well, the system is overworked.” Then we got that crazy email from Sitel saying they had declared a “critical incident”. I gave up at that point, thought: “Let’s forget about it” and went to the supermarket for the weekly shop.

Fri May 29

The next day I tried again and got the same messages saying “the computer won’t do it”. They then sent more instructions about how to log in. I followed those to the letter and it still didn’t work, so I went off in a bit of a huff at that stage.

Sat May 30

Over the weekend I decided to try it another way around and it worked.

I logged in and thought: “Right, well now I can book my sessions.” So I booked three four-hour contact-tracing sessions for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Mon June 1

Then on Monday, I got these messages saying the sessions had been cancelled. When I looked in the diary they had gone grey and been blanked out. A machine or person had cancelled them and I thought: “Oh, this is crazy.” Now my work calendar says I have zero sessions for every day as far as I can look.

Tue June 2 and Wed June 3

I have still yet to make a call. In the meantime, I have been doing bits around the house and gardening.

When they do get their act together I will do some sessions, but my enthusiasm is evaporating rapidly. The system is not firing on any cylinders at the moment and contact-tracing will be important so they have to sort it out soon. Baroness Dido Harding said it won’t be working until the end of June, maybe she is the only one telling the truth?