Facepalm

You really couldn’t make it up.

The government’s new NHS Covid-19 app has come under fire after it emerged it can’t accept results of tests carried out in NHS hospitals or Public Health England labs.

The situation has been branded “a whole new level of absurdity” – with people unable to share their results anonymously with close contacts.

Just two days ago Health Secretary Matt Hancock claimed the app – launched four months later than promised – was an “important step forward” in the fight against the virus.

And in another flaw with the app, it has emerged that people are unable to enter negative results – meaning a self-isolation countdown does not stop.

Words fail me. I just haven’t got anything to add. What a bunch of incompetents.

16 Comments

  1. Following up on the startling revelation that wearing a clear plastic face visor is completely ineffective with regard to this virus. I went to the chippy and was served by a woman who was wearing a tiny plastic visor that just covered her nose and mouth. It makes sense if you think about it, equally useless and less cumbersome.

  2. Without getting into conspiracy theory territory, could it be that one, or several, civil servants are deliberately manipulating these programmes? Although no one but a moron would want this CCP infection to continue, It would not surprise me if anything to discredit the actions of this government would be considered acceptable. A bit like the Muslim ‘taqquiya’.

  3. Time will tell – that isn’t what the app is for. I expect it will end up being a check-in system, more for social credit and people control

  4. “Typical government IT project, then?”

    It is an interesting question as to why this is. I’ve just acquired a Spotify account and the app works perfectly well. The source menu on my car radio has Spotify on it. Any time I get into my car with my phone in my pocket the car radio tells my phone to turn the app on and it starts up my playlist from where it last left off. I can control it using the buttons on my steering wheel. The whole package works despite the fact that it’s a Kenwood car stereo and a Samsung phone. So why does the government only employ IT consultants that can’t do their jobs?

    • Easily explained. It is because Spotify want to make money so they need something to get you using their product and stay using it so they can stay employed and earn more money. The government already have your money and can force you to give more regardless of whether you use the product or not so they won’t lose their jobs. So they can do whatever they want, doesn’t matter if it is badly designed or even doesn’t work.

  5. When I was a working engineer there was a Murphy’s or Sod’s Law corollary, applicable to software, to the effect:
    By the time a program is perfect it is obsolete.
    One reason I am not an early adopter.

  6. It’s a race to be first

    Blair & Brown spunked £12 Billion on a binned NHS IT project

    Johnson & Hancock spunked £10 Billion on binned Mk1 T&T App
    Johnson & Hancock spunking £xxx on Mk2 T&T App which is useless – other than for issuing £10,000 fines
    (from Monday police to start knocking doors to check you’re quarantining)

    Meanwhile Sunak sits in #11 crying and reciting “We must stop fear and live with it”

    The headline says it all in Peter Hitchens’s latest column in the Mail on Sunday

    “Boris’ great idea? Burn down the house Twice to get rid of a wasps’ nest, then stand in the ruins and blame everyone but himself for this futile catastrophe”
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8776033/

  7. I wonder if it could be an HR issue. I read a post from a guy who had applied for a very technical engineering post for which he was more than qualified. After not getting the job he contacted the HR department asking for feedback on why he didn’t get it and to see if he could improve his CV. The HR woman had passed over his application because it was too technical and she didn’t understand it. With HR people like that any idiot could blag an IT job.

  8. As a follow-up to this, I’ve just had an email from my bank telling me that if I have physical place of business, I am now obliged to have a QR code linking to the app so that people can scan in.

    • The QR is voluntary and for hospitality venues (where masks not needed) and for guest’s convenience

      Two Problems
      1. Check-in, but can’t check-out
      2. Does not absolve venue owner from mandatory collection of details from all entering – I foresee revenue raising fines soon

      Which Bank?

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