Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

"I can't have the app- I am nhs"

105 replies

Thaimoon · 18/10/2020 12:23

Heard someone saying this yesterday in a pub to the waitress. She asked if he had scanned his track and trace app and he said "I can't have the app, I work for the nhs in a hospital so it would be going off all the time". AIBU to think this is BS?! Surely if you work somewhere you could be exposed or expose others regularly that's all the more reason to have it?? Or am I missing something

OP posts:
BessieSurtees · 18/10/2020 14:38

@Miljea we are not allowed to eat together for that very reason.

Volcanicorange · 18/10/2020 14:49

I'm NHS and I don't have the app.

Partly for this reason, partly because I don't want to be monitored and told to isolate. I'm a free person and the app isn't compulsory. I take other precautions, wear a mask etc

Last time I checked it was a free country Confused

DaveMinion · 18/10/2020 15:44

I’m nhs and also have the app but told to turn contact tracing off while in the building.

I work in a high contact area (theatres) with full ppe at times so could have contact with covid every day. Our elective patients are tested but emergencies aren’t always in for long enough to have results (we have no testing at the weekend and although we have rapid testing 24/7 the wards are useless at requesting it) and if a patient has no result then they have to be treated as positive.

Heatherjayne1972 · 18/10/2020 16:18

We’re not to have it either - (private dental practice )
Well it should be switched off at work since we’re in ppe They can’t tell us not to download it They can insist it’s switched off in work hours tho

So nhs teachers police and various others are required not to use it at work
What’s the actual point of it. If people can’t use it ?

FenellaMaxwell · 18/10/2020 16:29

It’s a complete pain in the backside - you have to manually toggle it off every time you go to work, and if you work on a county site for example you have to toggle it off multiple times a day as you move between buildings. It’s really easy to forget, it’s not at all practical.

SpeedofaSloth · 18/10/2020 16:31

The app cannot tell if you are protected by PPE, or a perspex screen. I turned the contract tracing off and just use the check in function.

mummabubs · 18/10/2020 16:34

I'm in the NHS in Wales, we've also received an official email from our health board chief exec saying either don't download it at all or if you do then you have to turn it off every time you go to work (as others have said, it would create a lot of false isolation alerts otherwise). It's not practical and is a pain in the bum to keep trying to remember to turn it off (which I frequently forget if I'm being honest).

EmilyDickinson · 18/10/2020 16:34

I don’t understand why, instead of turning the app off for work where you have full PPE people don’t just turn it on for unprotected non household contacts. I just think of it as something I do along with putting on my mask. When I put on my mask I turn on the app.

JaceLancs · 18/10/2020 16:42

DD works for NHS they have been told not to download the app

Qqwweerrtty · 18/10/2020 16:57

Only about 20- 25% of the population have downloaded the app.

Amijustagrump · 18/10/2020 17:41

Dp is paramedic and was told not to get it by senior management
I work in a school so we have currently had 3 covid tests each since September due to symptoms. Any more would be a nightmare

Lolaloveslemonade · 18/10/2020 17:58

I don’t understand why, instead of turning the app off for work where you have full PPE people don’t just turn it on for unprotected non household contacts.

At work where I have full PPE?
No ‘full PPE’ at my work. Barely a mask in sight and not one inside the classroom.

SchrodingersUnicorn · 18/10/2020 18:05

Someone said that teachers not downloading it must be local - I think it is, yes. But the reason for it is that schools run on completely different rules to normal track and trace so it confuses things. We almost never have to isolate when our pupils get it, even if they sit on the front row directly facing us at a distance on 1m for a 2 hour lesson. In any other situation that would mean isolating.

Miljea · 18/10/2020 18:07

Muchtoonuchtodo's reply to this, by me:

"Regarding Track and Trace:

NHS: On Wednesday, a person at work was urged to get tested as he looked awful and was coughing. He tested positive. We were all emailed asking who'd been in the staff room (eating lunch so no masks) with him on the Weds.

As a result, 8 people are SI. One is a close colleague who sat more than 2m away from him in the staff room, for half an hour on Weds.

Now, on the Tuesday, the day before he tested, I sat less than 1m away from him, both eating lunch, for at least 15 mins as did a few others. Different, much smaller staff room, an alcove off the work area. There is no way anyone could SD in there! One of the others has subsequently told me she told him he looked ill on that Tuesday as they were working together. I was working in a nearby but different area.

I asked my line manager why only the Wednesday people had to SI, not Tuesday's as he was evidently positive, then, as well.

She said it was because he'd only become symptomatic on Wednesday, but surely The Advice says anyone in contact 48 hours or less before the symptoms appear should SI? Thus Monday and Tuesday?

Sadly, I know why they are re-writing the rules as they go along. If they SI'ed all those people, a mid-size hospital would no longer have a functional Radiology department....

Anyway, we are all now going to be tested across The Trust over these 5 days, so the Contact thing is moot.

As an aside, we haven't been told to turn the App off at work."

Muchtoomuch says:

'Why aren’t you and your colleagues maintaining social distancing at work?
We have it drummed into us in every CEO update (currently twice weekly) that we must in order to avoid situations exactly like the one you describe.'

I say: how? Where do we eat? On a 13 hour shift? The contact I had, the area is literally 4m x 2m. One end is clinical, sort of, where the staff process images, sort bookings, etc. The other end is 3 'easy chairs' where they take breaks, eat lunch.

Thus you find up

Bringonspring · 18/10/2020 18:08

I know people with almost burner phones where they have installed the app to get past it all!

RunningFromInsanity · 18/10/2020 18:11

My brothers a doctor and he has been told not to get the app.

Miljea · 18/10/2020 18:20

[quote BessieSurtees]@Miljea we are not allowed to eat together for that very reason.[/quote]
We have no workable options, sadly.

Hercwasonaroll · 18/10/2020 18:23

Teacher here. If I had the app on and a pupil had the app, I'd be told to isolate. If the app isn't on, my school won't tell me to isolate. Makes sense that schools don't want teachers having it on.

satnighttakeaway · 18/10/2020 18:25

@marveloustimeruiningeverything

I've refused to download the app.
Why do you need to refuse? No one's trying to make you download it are they?
Sewrainbow · 18/10/2020 18:27

Our trust tells people to turn it off at work.

LimaFoxtrotCharlie · 18/10/2020 18:32

On iPhone (and probably android too?) you can set up an “automation” to switch off the covid app eg when you arrive at work and to switch it on again when you leave.

support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/shortcuts/apdfbdbd7123/4.0/ios/14.0

Miljea · 18/10/2020 18:34

What is 'full PPE?'

To me, that's Ebola (which I was trained in back in May.).

NHS PPE is now a paper surgeon's mask, plus a plastic apron and gloves, for everyone unless they're known CV, in which case it's FFP3 (fit tested), visor, wrap around gown, double gloves, full don and doff.

Chouetted · 18/10/2020 18:39

@LimaFoxtrotCharlie Not sure I'd suggest relying on that - it will switch on again if your GPS drifts out of work premises.

EmilyDickinson · 18/10/2020 18:47

At work where I have full PPE?
No ‘full PPE’ at my work. Barely a mask in sight and not one inside the classroom.

I suspect we are in a similar situation at work lola, so I have the app turned on when I’m there

EmilyDickinson · 18/10/2020 18:50

If you don’t feel that your PPE at work properly protects you from a case of confirmed Covid, and you have the app, and are allowed to have it, then you should have the app on surely? Or is it better to be exposed to Covid, not know and potentially spread it?

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.